i 1 ii 

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^CURRICULUM 



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Creed and Curriculum 



A Discussion of the Question, Can the 
Essentials of Religious Faith and Prac- 
tice Be Taught in the Public 
Schools of the United States? 



By 

WILLIAM CHARLES O'DONNELL, Jr. 

Editor Educational Foundations 




New York: EATON & MAINS 
Cincinnati: JENNINGS & GRAHAM 



LC \\\ 



Copyright, 1914, by 
W. C. O'DONNELL, Jr 



APfi 13 IQH 



,ffW' .^BBu . amvM - 

ICI.A371346 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I. The Problem Stated 11 

II. Some Expressions op Opinion 21 

III. Some Further Opinions 30 

IV. In Other Lands 43 

V. The Testimony of Primitive Man 55 

VI. Primitive Man and Education 66 

VII. An American Criticism and an Australian 

Experiment 71 

VIII. Pre-Christian Nations 83 

IX. The Great Teacher 93 

X. Before the Reformation 101 

XI. Who Leads the Way? 113 



8 



IN ANTICIPATION 

In the development of his theme the author 
has made a somewhat liberal use of quotation. 
The advantage in this practice is to give em- 
phasis to the importance of the subject and to 
indicate a trend of opinion which in itself is 
highly significant. What is needed at the pres- 
ent time is fearless yet kindly discussion, un- 
burdened by dogmatism and unsullied by 
prejudice. Should this little book intensify 
interest in such a discussion its purpose will 
have been fulfilled. 

The following excerpt is from Ideals and 
Democracy, An Essay in Modernism, by 
Arthur Henry Chamberlain, just published by 
Rand, McNally & Company, a stimulating 
book dealing with fundamental principles : 

"The school, you say, for intellection and 
the home and the church for morality. To 
place upon the church and the home the duty 
of inculcating the principles of moral living, 
and to intrust the duty of such proper instruc- 
tion to ministers and fathers and mothers is 
not enough. Time was when moral teaching 

5 



6 CEEED AND CUERICULUM 

took place largely in the home. The home life 
was a community life. The home was the cen- 
ter of the family. There were fewer congested 
cities than now. Social and industrial condi- 
tions were vastly more simple than they are to- 
day. Children are now reared in apartment 
houses and tenements, and in stifling cellars 
and garrets. The manifold duties of fathers 
and mothers separate them constantly from 
their children, and the latter simply are al- 
lowed to ^grow' as was Topsy. The increased 
desire for wealth and the get-rich-quick spirit 
of the day render parents careless of their du- 
ties in the realm of moral instruction. The 
very atmosphere of this century of faster liv- 
ing makes the problem ever increasingly com- 
plicated.'' 

Mr. R. Fulton Cutting, president of the New 
[York Association for Improving the Condition 
of the Poor, in a recent address spoke as 
follows : 

"Organized cooperation between the church 
and public school teachers will materially in- 
crease the influence and importance of each in 
the community in forming a moral sense in the 
plastic minds of the community's youth. 
Everywhere, through school committees, the 



IN ANTICIPATION 7 

pastor and his people should get in close touch 
with teachers, principals, and district superin- 
tendents of the public schools, to study mod- 
ern methods of education, sanitation in the 
schools, the adaptation of the curriculum to 
meet the needs of the community, and work 
for the introduction of manual training, ele- 
mentary agriculture, and domestic science. 
At present, machine methods of education, 
with no regard for individual capacities or de- 
fects of children, are responsible for much of 
the crime in the country. 

"There are 19,000,000 children in the public 
school of this country, receiving no direct re- 
ligious education. For five hours a day they 
are in touch with their teachers and under the 
teacher's influence. Once a week, less than 
one per cent of these children go to Sunday 
schools, which attempt to make up for the lack 
of moral education in the public schools ; but 
too often the methods of pedagogy used in 
these Sunday schools are archaic and obsolete, 
the practical methods of teaching in the public 
schools being there unknown. The church ex- 
hausts itself in efforts to reclaim the youth 
whom it has neglected." 

Addressing the session of the Federated 



8 CREED AND CURRICULUM 

Catholic Societies at Milwaukee August llth, 
Archbishop Ireland declared that "the evil to- 
day in America is the decay of religion, and, 
in necessary sequence, the decay of morals. In 
both instances the cause of the decay is the en- 
forced secularism of the state schools. Others 
than Catholics, heedful observers and intelli- 
gent thinkers, admit the evil, admit the cause 
and give the alarm.'' 

Speaking further of secular schools the 
Archbishop said: "Not against State schools 
as such do I raise objections, but as to the 
method in which they work — methods that, 
whatever the theory be, do in fact consecrate 
secularism as the religion of America and 
daily are thither driving America with the 
floodtide of Niagara. Somehow, I claim, secu- 
lar knowledge must be imparted to the child, so 
as not to imperil its faith in God and Christ. 
Prove to me, I say, that this contention does 
not fully fit into the Constitution of the 
United States; that in making it I have not 
in mind the welfare, the salvation of America 
— prove this before you call the contention un- 
American if not anti- American.'' 

This eloquent pronouncement is worthy the 
consideration and indorsement of Protestants 



IN ANTICIPATION 9 

as well as of Catholics. With such breadth of 
view and such ardent patriotism as here ex- 
pressed, the Archbishop, we conclude, would 
not consider the parochial school, valuable as 
it may be to his own communion, the solution 
of the problem he presents. Only the spirit- 
ualizing of the secular school can meet the 
contingency, and for this purpose good Ameri- 
cans can afford to distinguish between what is 
essentially sectarian and what is fundamen- 
tally religious. 

According to a current newspaper report, a 
large number of the members of the upper 
classes in a public school within the boun- 
daries of Greater New York are refusing to 
join in songs that have any reference to the 
Deity. The questioning of the district super- 
intendent elicited this reply : 

"We have been taught a lot of things in 
science about the growth and origins of things 
which don't agree with the things in the Bible, 
and we take the science. The Bible says that 
God put the rainbow in the sky as a sign that 
there should be no more floods. We have been 
taught that the rainbow is caused by refrac- 
tion of the sun's rays in rain drops falling to 
the earth. Another thing, the Bible says the 



10 CEEED AND CUEEICULUM 

sun was put in the heaTens to rule by day and 
the moon by night, but the moon often shines 
by day/' 

Making allowance for whatever of misrepre- 
sentation the report may contain, the reason 
given exhibits an utter lack of appreciation of 
the Bible as literature and no proper concep- 
tion of the real nature of religion. For this 
the young people are, of course, not respon- 
sible. What, then, should be expected of the 
schools which eventually must trim their 
methods to suit atheistic objections, or incul- 
cate a wholesome regard for the beauties and 
blessings of belief in the Deity? Is not this a 
turning question of the day? 



THE PROBLEM STATED 

Can the essentials of religious faith and prac- 
tice he taught in the puhlic schools of the 
United States, for the good of the country, 
without violating the spirit of the Constitu- 
tion and without justifying antagonism 
from religious sects? 

Perhaps this is not the best possible phras- 
ing of the question. It is designed, however, 
to be somewhat comprehensive and is aimed 
at the heart of a serious educational problem. 
On the following propositions there is little 
room for dissension : 

(a) Religion is an instinct of the human 
heart, a potent agency in the formation 
of character and in the creation of 
ideals, a dominant factor in society, 
and an outstanding fact in history. 
(h) The fundamental and universal ele- 
ments in religion can be clearly differ- 
entiated from sectarian doctrine and 
method. 

11 



12 CREED AND CUERICULUM 

(c) The best and most authoritative defi- 
nitions of education absolutely compel 
the directing of the child's spiritual 
nature. We do not "educate'' children 
unless we prepare their minds for the 
comprehension of religious truth. 

(d) The practice of leaving religious in- 
struction to home and church results in 
thousands of American boys and girls 
growing to maturity with no true con- 
ception of the value of religion and no 
adequate moral equipment. Home con- 
ditions vary and church allegiance is 
voluntary^ Other provision is impera- 
tive if our young people are to under- 
stand the reasonableness of reverence. 

(e) The individual, the home, the church, 
the school, and the nation would all be 
benefited by the actual employment of 
our general educational machinery in 
the interests of pure religion. 

Therefore it follows that 
(/) Educational leaders owe it to the coun- 
try to devise a system of religious in- 
struction in the public schools free 
from all suspicion of sectarian bias. 

And presumably 



THE PEOBLEM STATED 13 

{g) A Superintendent of Eeligious Instruc- 
tion, working in harmony with, ac- 
credited representatives of Jewish, 
Koman Catholic, and Protestant or- 
ganizations in each State, could safe- 
guard the interests of all the people and 
preserve the constitutional principle of 
separation of church and state. 

In an era of transitional foment, the calm 
discussion of imposing problems is an obliga- 
tion to be denied only with dishonor. Such 
is our era, such is our problem, and such is 
our obligation. We must recognize at the out- 
set the difficulties and delicacies involved in 
all discussions having to do with religion, and 
the danger of embarrassing entanglements 
with other somewhat related questions. When 
these questions are confused, the issue is be- 
fogged and progress impeded. 

We are not now discussing (1) the teaching 
of morals, (2) devotional exercises, (3) Bible 
reading, or (4) sectarian intrusion. We can 
make no advancement without a clear under- 
standing on these points of differentiation. 

(1) We have no reason to doubt that the 
moral standards of the classroom are high. 



14 CEEED AND CUEEICULUM 

They may be more wholesome and more far- 
reaching than is generally realized. Those 
who contend for direct and conscious moral 
instruction have much weight of argument on 
their side. Some argue very adroitly against 
such a program, however, on the ground that 
it is very apt to defeat its own purpose. 
"Morals," say they in substance, "must be 
inhaled, absorbed, unconsciously assimilated, 
silently incarnated, gently blended with per- 
sonality, gradually transfused into charac- 
ter," etc. As you will. The discussion is 
quite distinct and affects the present one only 
indirectly. Eeligious conceptions applied to 
conduct determine moral values, but morality 
is not religion in its entirety. 

(2) We are not pleading for devotional 
exercises, compulsory or voluntary. The cases 
of pupils having been seriously harmed by the 
few minutes given to such exercises in secular 
schools have not figured largely in our history, 
nor will the story of the benefits bestowed 
upon impressionable hearts through this 
agency ever be written. Objections have 
arisen, however, and in some sections have 
operated to abolish the practice. With these 
objections we have nothing to do at pres- 



THE PKOBLEM STATED 15 

ent. It is at least admissible that some 
individuals may object to the devotions and 
yet understand that the absence of real reli- 
gious instruction in our public schools is the 
glaring pedagogical inconsistency of the age. 

(3) When recently the editor of Religious 
Education conducted an investigation into 
the subject, it was shown that in eleven 
States Bible reading was definitely provided 
for by legislative enactment. Twenty-seven 
States had no law on the subject, but gen- 
erally observed the custom. The Bible was 
by due legal process understood to be excluded 
from the schools in the States of California, 
Washington, Montana, Minnesota, Nevada, 
Idaho, Arizona, Wisconsin, and Illinois. In 
a number of States legislation was pending. 
The proposition to give religion a definite 
place in the school curriculum is quite aside 
from the reading of a few passages of Scrip- 
ture as part of opening or closing exercises. 

(4) As for sectarian intrusion, our public 
school system must ever be valiantly guarded 
against it. The fear of it constitutes the crux 
of our problem. Were there no danger along 
this line, there would be little occasion for this 
discussion. How shall we put religion in and 



16 CEEED AND CURRICULUM 

shut sectarianism out? Do we propose to 
keep religion out forever, lest perchance sec- 
tarianism shall get in? Such a course is eva- 
sion, not solution. It is illogical, cowardly, 
perilous, and absolutely unwarranted. It is 
poor pedagogy, poor morals, and poor Ameri- 
canism. Let us remember that religion is 
from above and is indispensable. Sectarian- 
ism is from below and is incidental. 

On page 620 of the second volume of Dr. 
G. Stanley Hall's Educational Problems may 
be found the sentence: "Protestant of Protes- 
tants though I am, I feel the force of the 
contention of my Catholic brethren that the 
school shall not be godless." On the next page 
the author declares : "We should set about to 
find fundamentals in religion that can be 
taught all children for their moral good/' 
These fundamentals should not be difficult to 
find. Some of them surely are a part of the 
common knowledge. The proposal to provide 
for their effective presentation in the graded 
school seems as yet but a Barmecide feast. 
Aladdin's palace was judged perfect with the 
exception of that one window which the Sul- 
tan lacked treasure to finish. Proud as we 
have a right to be of this educational palace 



THE PKOBLEM STATED 17 

of ours, we dare not predicate perfection of 
it, for were it even so in all other respects, 
there yet remains this Aladdin's window of 
religious instruction to finish. Andrew S. 
Draper, whose recent death removed a com- 
manding figure from the field of educational 
administration, was wont to speak and write 
with unction on this subject. In American 
Education we find this expression: "It is to 
be regretted that we cannot come to agree- 
ment upon some basis of popular education 
and religious culture which would be repug- 
nant to none and which would relieve the 
denominations and the churches from the 
effort and expense for instruction that the 
most forceful of them feel bound to make." 

It is well to refer frequently to the Ordi- 
nance of 1787 for the government of the North- 
west Territory, wherein we read: "Eeligion, 
morality, and knowledge being necessary to 
good government and the happiness of man- 
kind, schools and the means of education 
shall forever be encouraged." This language 
is not to be dismissed lightly as applicable 
only to "primitive conditions" — a plea that is 
very popular in these complex times — for no 
matter how heterogeneous our population, 



18 CREED AND CURRICULUM 

and no matter how complex our civilization, 
it is true now, as it was true in 1787 and as 
it will be true in 1987 and in the long cen- 
turies of American history that are still to 
come^ that good government and human hap- 
piness will derive their supplies from these 
ancient reservoirs — religion, morality, and 
knowledge. Further, we shall continue to 
encourage "schools and the means of educa- 
tion" because they promulgate knowledge, 
advance morality, and are open channels for 
the living waters of pure and undefiled reli- 
gion. 

This question is not one of interest to peda- 
gogues and theorists alone. It is as intensely 
practical and pressing as any now agitat- 
ing the public mind. It affects society at the 
sources of its life, and generations to come 
will be swayed by influences created by the 
action or inaction of this generation at this 
point. We are all too familiar with out- 
breaks of crime not only in large cities but 
in smaller towns and in mountain fastnesses. 
The gangster is constantly coming into 
prominence and power. It is deplorable that 
in the humming centers of our industrial and 
commercial life there are groups of creatures 



THE PROBLEM STATED 19 

in human form as ready to spill human blood 
as the African hunter is to bring down his 
inhuman prey. Yes, it is indeed to be de- 
plored, but there is another fact even more 
sinister. How many of us are keenly alive 
to the situation? We may arrest and punish 
and kill these red-handed criminals, but while 
we are engaged in these punitive occupations, 
scores, and hundreds, and thousands of 
youngsters are growing up with no loftier 
ambition than to be gang members and gang 
heroes. Anyone who cares to take the oppor- 
tunity of closely observing the conduct of the 
motley gToups of boys of a school age who 
overrun the dirty streets of the slums will 
witness shocking evidence of their thievish- 
ness, their craftiness, their vindictiveness 
and bestiality. 

These are not pleasant reflections. Some 
may consider them but the prating of a pessi- 
mist. Others are compelled to hear much of 
the obscene and brazenly blasphemous lan- 
guage of the streets, and are forced to face 
the question, "If this is the material upon 
which our schools are at work to fashion it 
for a useful maturity, what are the chances 
for success?'' Is there not some way of im- 



20 CREED AND CURRICULUM 

planting within the hearts of these lads some 
flower of reverence whose fragrance may 
sweeten the coming years? If this is a con- 
summation to be wished, mnst there not be 
some more systematic and comprehensive 
effort than is possible under the present 
regime? This is but one phase of the broad 
problem, for, as indicated above, there are 
children not of the city streets who are yet 
unprotected against the peril of a religionless 
life. It is indubitably the province of our 
public educational enterprise to drive deep 
into all minds the thought that Daniel Web- 
ster declared to be the greatest he ever enter- 
tained, namely, his personal accountability to 
God. This would be one of the aims of reli- 
gious instruction in the secular school. 
Should this be the only good accomplished, 
it would be worth millions of dollars to the 
country. 



II 

SOME EXPEESSIONS OF OPINION 

In the preceding eliapter care has been 
taken to define the meaning and to delimit 
the scope of the problem with which we are 
trying to deal. An attempt was made also to 
differentiate between this problem and sev- 
eral others related to it and sometimes con- 
fused with it. We sought such a statement 
of the case as would permit of no misunder- 
standing on the part of the careful reader. 
Men are so prone to approach a discussion 
of this kind with minds polychromic with pre- 
conceptions that a great gain is made if we 
can be assured that there is a common under- 
standing as to terms used, as to facts compre- 
hended by the formal phrasing of the discus- 
sion, and as to the ultimate purpose of the 
argument. It is possibly too much to hope 
that all this was actually accomplished, but 
those who are satisfied with this preliminary 
statement will readily agree that the com- 
plete secularization of our public schools is 
an egregious blunder resulting in evils that 

21 



22 CKEED AND CUERICULUM 

must sooner or later require radical remedies. 
The evils are evident, the remedies are prob- 
lematical. The time is upon us when an ear- 
nest attempt should be made to unite on 
some plan of action, and to clearly outline a 
policy that may diminish the dangers into 
which we are drifting. A few illustrations of 
what persons of learning and influence are 
saying on the subject in general may suffice, 
however, for the purpose of the present paper. 
To quote: "Children should be taught to 
fear God and love their fellow men. They 
should be made familiar with the truths of 
the Bible. They should be instructed to re- 
member their Creator in the days of their 
youth, and to observe the commandments. 
But this is a branch of education which is 
not within the province of the State. It be- 
longs to parents, the home, the Sunday school, 
the mission, and the church.'' This sentiment 
was expressed by Judge Moore, of Detroit, in 
1898, when dissenting from the decision in 
the case of one Pfeiffer versus the Board of 
Education, to the effect that fifteen minutes 
for Bible reading at the close of the day's 
session was not a violation of the State Con- 
stitution. It may be that the opinion of Judge 



SOME EXPRESSIONS OF OPINION 23 

Moore as thus expressed is held by thousands 
of Americans who love truth and righteous- 
ness, and who believe in the integrity of the 
public school system no less firmly than they 
believe in the cause of religion. Does it not 
actually declare the American ideal and prac- 
tice? What fault can be found with it except 
by the confirmed atheist who, of course, will 
not consent that children should be taught 
to fear God? Many familiar facts of history 
could be adduced and correlated as an ada- 
mantine argument in support of the opinion 
that religion should be considered a branch 
of education which is not within the province 
of the State and consequently cannot be per- 
mitted in the curricula of institutions sup- 
ported by public revenues. Theoretically, 
our impulse would be to subscribe to this 
belief as correctly representing the true ideal 
of Western civilization, liberated, as we 
fondly boast, from the burdensome practices 
of darker ages and from the bitter thraldoms 
of the effete Orient. On second thought, how- 
ever, we discover that by acknowledging reli- 
gion as a "branch of education" and then 
excluding it from our public educational pro- 
gram we place either religion or education or 



24 CKEED AND CURKICULUM 

both in an anomalous position. Perhaps the 
judge used the expression in an accommo- 
dated sense, and it is probable that he does 
not really regard religion as a branch of edu- 
cation in the same sense that obtains in the 
case of law, philosophy, science, art, and 
literature, or as applied to the vocational and 
recreational departments now so popular as 
features of our educational propaganda. And 
again, how will this opinion meet the test 
pragmatically? It is for many reasons desir- 
able that our young people shall approach 
adulthood with a keen sense of personal re- 
sponsibility, which is, after all, but the 
reverse side of the shield of reverence. With- 
out conscience and heart, as well as mind and 
hand, the individual is but poorly equipped 
for effective citizenship in this world, to say 
nothing of any possible world to come. So 
we say the home and the church, the parent 
and the priest must see to it that the children 
shall be provided with soundly practical reli- 
gious instruction. Then we leave the home 
and the church, the parent and the priest to 
do as they please or as they can. Homes may 
be religionless, parents godless, churches 
mechanical, and priests mercenary. The 



SOME EXPKESSIONS OF OPINION 25 

actual condition that confronts us is the utter 
inadequacy of these agencies to insure a uni- 
versal religious education. So we run plumb 
into the dilemma, Shall we cling to our petty 
theory or shall we yield to the compulsion of 
facts? 

To quote again: "Education to be worthy 
of the name trains the faculties of the intel- 
lect to grasp and contemplate the truth; it 
trains and disposes the affections of the heart 
to desire and cling to the beautiful and good. 
It restrains and purifies the passions; it 
teaches the will to yield to reason and obey 
the dictates of conscience in doing right and 
avoiding wrong. The unequal development 
of man is not education. No process that 
does not take into account the present and 
the future, the temporal and the eternal, can 
claim to be philosophical, complete, or desir- 
able." 

Which is to say that the education now 
administered through our State systems of 
public instruction is not philosophical, is not 
complete, is not desirable. 

"The great question of our day is the ques- 
tion of education. Education forms men and 
nations, and that system of education is best 



26 CKEED AND CURRICULUM 

which gives man the true ideal or conception 
of his relations to God, to society, and to the 
world around him." Did ever man have a 
true conception of his relations to society 
who did not have a true conception of his 
relations to God? Why should man be true 
to his fellow man if man and his fellow know 
not the God of truth? Without this knowl- 
edge, education is a misnomer and the educa- 
tional system that omits it is a monstrosity. 

"No wonder that religion has so little part 
in the lives of millions when it has so little 
share in their education. To exclude religion 
from the schools of a nation means to exclude 
religion from the life of a nation. We cannot 
gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles. A 
religious people can never spring from unre- 
ligious schools.'^ 

From what source are we drawing these 
quotations? They are the words of Regis 
Canevin, Bishop of Pittsburgh, in an address 
delivered before the Catholic Educational 
Association, Pittsburgh, June 12, 1912, and 
reported in the Catholic Educational Review 
for September, 1912. The stanchest Protes- 
tant in the country might have uttered the 
same words with perfect consistency, however 



SOME EXPEESSIONS OF OPINION 27 

much he may differ with the author as to 
cause and cure. The distinguished bishop 
was able to quote Mr. Balfour of England in 
part as follows: "I hold it to be an evil, aye, 
the greatest of all evils, to permit children to 
be brought up in schools in which no pro- 
vision was made for religious formation. And 
I solemnly express, to-day, my hope that Eng- 
land will never accept the responsibility of 
public instruction without religion." 

We are reminded further of the memorable 
words of Washington: "Whatever may be 
conceded to the influence of refined education 
on minds of peculiar structure, reason and 
experience both forbid us to expect that 
national morality can prevail in exclusion of 
religious principle." 

It would seem that there is a remarkable 
unanimity among churchmen, educators, and 
statesmen as to the necessity of religious in- 
struction from the standpoint of the well-being 
of the nation. That which is best for the 
citizenship of the country — that which 
promises to contribute largely to the per- 
petuity of our institutions and to the peace 
and prosperity of the land through the com- 
ing years, is ipso facto the concern of the 



28 CREED AND CURRICULUM 

state — or nothing can be. That day is far 
gone when in ancient Israel every man did 
what was right in his own eyes and the record 
of its lawlessness indicates the inevitable 
trend of an ungoverned individualism. Social 
construction and reconstruction, making ever 
for better conditions and nobler achievement, 
must sink its foundation pillars deep into the 
Silurian rock of religious knowledge. This 
opinion is not the product of a vision dis- 
torted by bigotry and superstition. It is the 
positive implication of an honest patriotism 
that challenges dispute, and is consistent with 
the educational policy of the best thinkers of 
our age. It harmonizes in fact with the doc- 
trines and definitions of the great educators 
of the Christian era and in basic principle is 
identical with the teachings of the immortal 
emancipators of the ancient world. We may 
yet find opportunity to develop this observa- 
tion at greater length, for it offers an alluring 
field for easy research. Such a discussion lies 
far beyond the limits of the present chapter, 
however, and we close this chapter with an- 
other quotation which will give even stronger 
emphasis to the position here advocated. It 
may be found on page 229 of Davidson's Edu- 



SOME EXPRESSIONS OF OPINION 29 

cation of the Greek People: "By substituting 
philosophy for religion; by cultivating un- 
duly the abstract reason which is the organ 
of the former and ignoring the supernatural 
sense which is the condition of the latter; by 
placing the supreme activity of man in intel- 
lectual vision, instead of in moral life guided 
by the vision of love and good will, it failed 
to put itself in living relation to the supreme 
principle of that moral freedom which is the 
^chief end of man.' In consequence, Greece 
not only perished herself, but she left an 
example, by following which other nations 
have perished — ^yea, and other nations will 
yet perish unless, warned by her fate, they 
make all education culminate in the culture 
of the spiritual sense which reveals God, and 
so place religion on the throne which belongs 
to her as the guide and inspiration of life.'' 



Ill 

SOME FUKTHER OPINIONS 

The opinion slowly formed is the opinion 
firmly fixed. The question now under review 
involves an agitation that will become more 
and more acute as time rolls on and it is the 
duty of every American citizen to qualify for 
an intelligent participation in the discussion. 
It may yet be planked in some political plat- 
form and become recognized as of equal if 
not greater significance than some of the pro- 
posed improvements in the social economy 
now being hard ridden by aspirants for public 
office. Some problems are created for and 
hardly survive the exigencies of a campaign, 
but such issues as lie close to the heart of the 
republic and are most profoundly identified 
with its life are the great concern of a truly 
progressive people. It is well, therefore, that 
we spend sufficient time in dealing with the 
general aspects of our present topic before 
attempting those finer discriminations neces- 
sary to the final solution, if indeed such solu- 
tion can ever be found. 

30 



SOME FURTHER OPINIONS 31 

Let us therefore continue for a time the 
process of examining the utterances and ana- 
lyzing the opinions of men who have given 
most thought to the subject. By such process 
we should find ourselves getting closer and 
closer to the actual difficulties which we or 
our children will be compelled to face at the 
time of the final conflict. 

In a previous chapter passing allusion was 
made to a sentence in Dr. G. Stanley HalPs 
Educational Problems. A book has just 
appeared claiming to be a -digest or epi- 
tome of Dr. HalPs views as found in his many 
volumes, so that we have a crystallization of 
his teachings under the title, The Genetic 
Philosophy of Education. Dr. Hall is fortu- 
nate in having this work done for him during 
his own lifetime and in being permitted to 
write his own introduction. Dr. G. E. Par- 
tridge is the author of the book; Sturgis & 
Walton Company, New York, publishers. As 
pertinent to this discussion, we offer the fol- 
lowing selections from the chapter on "Reli- 
gious Education" : 

"The general educational aspects of the 
religious life can briefly be summarized thus: 
The function of religion is to establish and 



32 CREED AND CURRICULUM 

unify in the individual the highest racial 
ideals. The individual repeats the moral and 
spiritual growth of the race, and only in a 
completed adolescent stage does he arrive at 
that state of devotion to the ideals which, 
considered on its biological side, is a suppres- 
sion of self, in the service of the race, and on 
the religious side is a state of conversion or 
service to God. A truly religious life is, 
therefore, the expression of normal complete 
development. In it the individual comes to 
a safe maturity, having passed through stages 
of danger of arrested development, of perver- 
sion of interests, and of excessive self-interest. 
Religion must be regarded as the largest 
aspect of life, or its deepest meaning, and it 
must be called an inner growth, an expres- 
sion of fundamental instincts to be good, true, 
and normal. The religious teacher must be 
looked upon as an inspirer of development in 
a broad sense, so broad that his aims cannot 
be separated from the function of any and all 
teaching, for everything that fosters develop- 
ment of the child's fundamental instincts and 
emotions helps to lay the foundation of the 
religious life. Moreover, the course that ends 
in a normal religious life is one naturally 



SOME FURTHER OPINIONS 33 

taken by all, if heredity be sound and environ- 
ment natural. The religious teacher does not 
work against nature but with it. Religion 
has done its work in the world because it has 
rightly met the crying needs of human nature. 
To discover those needs at any stage of civili- 
zation we must ask, What is the nature of 
childhood? What are its deeper interests and 
real capacities? How must the child be 
trained in order to bring every power of mind 
and body to the fullest development? 

"The teaching of religion in the secular 
school is a difficult problem, and very impor- 
tant, for religion is so essential a part of life, 
and so intimately connected with every other 
function, that to neglect it, or to ignore it in 
teaching, is to leave out the most vital of all 
the elements of culture. It is certain now 
that the control of the religious organization 
over the public school has gone forever , and 
that the school must undertake to teach reli- 
gion. At present it can he said that the secu- 
larization of the school has cast out religion, 
and that in doing this it has inevitably weak- 
ened morality J and hampered the teaching of 
morals, which is inseparable from religion. 



34 CEEED AND CUKKICULUM 

The result is that many children must now 
grow up in ignorance of the Bible, which is 
the greatest culture book ever written. The 
wide-spread view that morality can be taught 
without religion is wrong. The teaching of 
prudential morals, all secular ethics, all 
that makes conduct center about obligation, 
good though these are, does not touch the 
vital spot of morality, which is rooted in reli- 
gion. Children must have a sense of God as 
a giver of laws, whose demand is right because 
he wills it ; and certainly at adolescence there 
must be religion to guide the moral life, if 
at no other time. The only method now open 
to the school, to preserve the good of the old 
religious teaching, without sacrificing secular 
ideals of education, is to have religion taught 
in the school by clergymen, each teaching the 
children of his own denomination. Failing 
this, religion as such is likely to be lost 
entirely from the school, and to be replaced 
by the inadequate method of moral teaching, 
depending upon literature and history for 
culture materials. 

"If the Christian religion is to be taught 
at all in the school, it should be presented 
with the same attention to the nature of the 



SOME FURTHER OPINIONS 35 

child as is given in any other subject of the 
curriculum. Failure to do this has in the 
past robbed the child of the great good that 
can be gained from the literary study of the 
Bible. It has been taught unpedagogically, 
because of overemphasis upon doctrine and, 
in general, upon the adult's interests. The 
recapitulatory principle may now correct this, 
and put the teaching of the Bible upon a new 
basis, for it leaves little doubt about the order 
and manner in which it should be taught. 
Before adolescence the child is morally in the 
stage of external authority, when, indeed, all 
his interests tend to be objective. For this 
period and interest, the religion of the Old 
Testament is precisely adapted. Its stories 
appeal strongly to the child's mind. Its 
heroic themes, its tales of wonder, battle, law, 
and punishment, its vividness in expression 
of all the elemental passions, reach the child's 
heart. 

• •••••• 

"The Bible should be supplemented at some 
points by selections from other religions, and 
perhaps ought to be preceded by more primi- 
tive religious stories. Classic and Hindu 
mythology and the bibles of other religions 



36 CEEED AND CUEEICULUM 

contain many themes, suited to the early 
stages of religious development, that are not 
sufficiently represented in our Bible to fully 
satisfy the genetic principle. Christianity 
grew out of other forms of religion, which in 
part still remain, or are paralleled in the 
religions of to-day. Sympathetic study of all 
these lower forms of faith is needed, for the 
purpose of bringing their culture to the serv- 
ice of the Christian child.'' 

It will be clearly perceived from these 
paragraphs that the genetic philosophy as 
explained by the author necessitates the im- 
parting of religious instruction in the insti- 
tution supported by the Christian state, if 
education in any proper sense of the word is 
the function of that institution. We may not 
be in accord, however, with the method which 
the author says is the only method now open 
to the school, namely, the introduction of 
clergymen each to teach the children of his 
own denomination. This plan is certainly 
open to some serious objections. It empha- 
sizes denominationalism. It cannot consist- 
ently become a part of a compulsory system 
of education in a country which has decreed 
the absolute independence of church and 



SOME FURTHER OPINIONS 37 

state. In many places it would be found 
utterly impracticable. It could not be 
depended on to accomplish much that is not 
now accomplished by the Sunday school, 
young people's organizations, and Bible 
classes. It has the fatal weakness of dis- 
criminating against religion as not being 
entitled to an honored place in the regular 
curriculum. The example of foreign coun- 
tries may be cited in its favor, but this is an 
American problem and must be settled in the 
American way. Should our discussion ad- 
vance to the point of comparing the merits of 
various methods, it will be necessary to take 
up these objections more in detail, but for the 
present it suffices to have shown the attitude 
of one who has long been regarded in many 
quarters as an authority, and whose knowl- 
edge of educational matters in general no one 
will question. 

A few years ago Mr. Charles Edward Rugh, 
of Oakland, California, distinguished himself 
by winning first prize in a contest for the best 
essay on "Moral Training in the Public 
School." In one place the essayist declares 
that the problem of moral training cannot be 
thrust back upon the home and church. 



38 CREED AND CUERICULUM 

"They must do their part ; but the whole child 
plays, learns, and lives at home and away 
from home; and the whole child comes to 
school. The teacher must grasp the whole 
situation in order to do her part.'' And the 
state must grasp the whole situation in order 
to do its part. The failure of the state to do 
this is far more disastrous than the failure of 
the teacher. The child — the whole child — is 
the pivotal point of the public school system 
and without him, or without any part of him, 
the system goes agog. Neglect the religious 
side of his nature, and the remainder is but 
a small fraction of the whole. An educated 
fraction is still inferior to an uneducated 
unit. The baker who leaves the loaf half 
baked would do better to let the flour alone. 
We, the people, so boastful of our prerogative 
of self-government must have a care lest by 
our bungling we forfeit our sacred heritage — 
and we can hardly bungle worse than to mis- 
take training for education. We have to do 
with the whole child and are basely untrue to 
our trust unless we seek to bring him into 
conscious relationship with the moral order 
of the universe and of the ages. For this 
purpose religion is divinely appointed. 



SOME FURTHER OPINIONS 39 

As for sectarianism Mr. Rugh stated the 
case in a remarkably simple yet perfectly 
clear analysis as follows : 

^^Tlie churches hold to the religious sanc- 
tions for morality, and demand the use of the 
Bible in education. They have prepared the 
three plans which follow: 

"1. Let churches agree upon a common 
creed concerning God, duty, and immortality, 
and found moral training on such a creed. 

"2. Separate the pupils into classes accord- 
ing to sectarian affiliations, and turn them 
over to their own clergymen or teachers. The 
high authority of Germany is quoted in sup- 
port of this plan. 

^^3. Let each sect build its own schools and 
draw upon public funds in proportion to the 
number of children under instruction. 

"These sectarian plans are inconsistent 
with the spirit of modern democracy." 

As for Felix Adler's theory of ethical cul- 
ture without reference to sanctions for con- 
duct the writer says : "This solution is correct 
and safe for boys or girls who cannot or do 
not ask ^Why?' But most American boys and 
girls do ask ^Why?' and a refusal to satisfy 
this craving of the rational soul raises the 



40 CKEED AND CURKICULUM 

suspicion whether there be good reasons for 
doing what is required." 

Religion furnishes the sanction and the all- 
sufficient reason for moral conduct and the 
only adequate way to teach morality in its 
beauty is to teach religion in its simplicity. 

Still another paragraph from Mr. Rugh's 
essay may be of value in this connection : 

"For the present, constitutional limitations 
and State laws have determined the practice 
of the teacher in regard to the formal presen- 
tation of the Bible and religious instruction in 
many public schools. The Hebrew race and 
the Bible have been the two mightiest forces 
in the moral uplift of mankind, and until the 
teacher is as free to use the inspiring and in- 
structive literature of the Bible as she is to 
use the Iliad and the Koran and the poetry 
of the other races, we are limiting the teacher 
in the use of efficient means of moral training, 
and therefore this is not a closed question; 
but teachers need not suspend moral training 
until this question is settled. The Bible is 
only one of the means. The problem of the 
hour is how to make the present situation and 
the means now within our reach yield the 
largest possible returns." 



SOME FURTHEK OPINIONS 41 

To make the best use of the situation is 
commendable, to be sure, but we must not 
excuse ourselves from trying to better the 
situation. The problem of the hour is not to 
make the best of a confessedly bad situation, 
rather it is to make the situation itself just 
what it ought to be. 

The opportunist may walk a pleasanter 
path than the reformer, but the reformer is 
needed to make paths pleasanter for those 
who are to follow. One of the ancient Egyp- 
tian kings has sent his name echoing down the 
centuries with the significant title "The Bet- 
terer." Not to agonize over the things we 
cannot help, but to contend valiantly against 
the things we should not endure — this must 
ever be the program of useful citizenship. 

Dr. William E. Chancellor in his excellent 
work, "Our Schools: Their Administration 
and Supervision," catalogues eight great social 
institutions as follows: Property, Family, 
Church, State, Occupation, School, Culture, 
Charity. It would appear that the author 
does not sufficiently consider the necessary 
interrelation of these institutions when he 
writes : "To make religion the basis of educa- 
tion is to return into the past before churches 



42 CEEED AND CURRICULUM 

and schools were differentiated from temples 
and were developed as independent and inte- 
gral social institutions. It is to convert the 
school partly into a church and to do this 
whether the instruction is general or denomi- 
national/' 

There is a difference assuredly between 
making religion the basis of education and 
giving it deserved attention in the curriculum. 
What we really need to know is how to do 
this w^ithout "converting the school partly 
into a church" in the denominational sense. 
If the objection means that the forms of truth 
for which all churches stand, that is, the 
necessary and universal content of religion, 
cannot be allowed entrance into the schools 
without converting them into churches, many 
might devoutly wish the conversion to be 
accomplished. As a purely American propo- 
sition the change would be decidedly in the 
nation's favor. As an educational proposition 
it would react advantageously upon the 
schools. As a religious proposition it would 
strengthen all the churches and affect, health- 
fully, multitudes of the churchless. Have we 
not expected this much of our schools from 
the beginning? 



IV 
IN OTHER LANDS 

It must not be inferred from anything that 
has gone before or from anything that may 
come after in this discussion that the writer 
is among those who would fill the land with 
clamorings of criticism against the public 
schools. So far is this from being true that 
the very submission of the question, "Is the 
public school a failure?^' seems to him little 
short of an impiety. Is the family a failure 
because there are godless and loveless 
families? This fundamental institution of 
society has not yet evolved an era of unquali- 
fied domestic felicity where every man sits 
serenely under his own vine and fig tree 
caressed by a devoted spouse and adored by 
dutiful children. Marital affairs still get woe- 
fully tangled, divorce courts are busy, jan- 
gling skeletons hang in many closets, brother 
still goes to law against brother, and every 
community has its quota of infidelities and 
infelicities. Yet the family is not a failure. 
It rests on eternal foundations and fulfills a 

43 



44 CEEED AND CUERIOULUM 

divine mission in human society. Civilization 
recognizes the sanctity of the home. 

Is the church a failure because the unre- 
generate are in such numbers among us and 
because the organization sometimes lags be- 
hind other institutions in the onward and 
upward march of mankind? Is government 
a failure because it can maintain itself only 
at the expense of navies and armies and 
courts and jails? Is civilization a failure 
because it is seamed and scarred with rebel- 
lions and revolutions, distorted by interne- 
cine wars, burdened with poverty, stained 
with crime, cursed by cruelties, and disfigured 
by tyrannies? No, ten thousand times. No! 
And the school is no more a failure than are 
civilization, government, church, and family. 
The school is not godless, either, save in the 
sense that there is no adequate uniform and 
compulsory provision for the teaching of the 
fundamental truths of God in our public school 
system. God is in the schools to the extent 
that he is in the hearts and characters of 
principals and teachers and to the extent that 
they are permitted to inculcate the beautiful 
things of the kingdom for the more perfect 
unfolding of the child's life. Our contention 



IN OTHEK LANDS 45 

is, however, that we owe it to God and to the 
children to make the instruction authoritative, 
uniform, impartial, comprehensive, and peda- 
gogically sound and effective. Until this is 
done there is some justification for the appli- 
cation of the word "godless'^ to the public 
school system. 

It is usually wise to cast about and see 
what other countries are doing in the direc- 
tion along which we seek to move. Care 
should be taken, however, not to construct an 
argument on the false premise that what 
others are doing we can and should do. We 
are called upon to work out our problem 
under conditions that confront no other 
nation, and we must be bold enough to adopt 
untried remedies, yet sensible enough to learn 
all we can from the experiences of others. Of 
this one thing we can be absolutely certain, 
namely, that the general principle of reli- 
gious instruction in schools maintained by 
the government has practical recognition in 
all countries of Christendom. The value of 
this fact as an argument in the present dis- 
cussion may be realized by imagining the 
opposite to be true. Suppose that the older 
nations had renounced the principle and that 



46 CREED AND CURRICULUM 

through long experimentation the unwisdom 
of it had been demonstrated to the extent that 
no European system of public instruction 
could be cited as its exponent. Against such 
a weight of testimony the American educator 
would hardly presume to lift a voice. We do 
not controvert the history of education, nor 
do we gainsay the experience of enlightened 
nations when we accept the doctrine and put 
the custom into practice. 

The methods employed by European coun- 
tries to accomplish the desired end show some 
little uniformity, but do not furnish a pattern 
for our American schools. Imagine the 
United States peopled by citizens all confess- 
ing the same faith, following the same reli- 
gious ideals, serving the same ecclesiastical 
organizations, and recognizing the same 
spiritual leadership. Strong-pinioned indeed 
must be the imagination to compass the flight. 
The ninety millions of us tabulated in the 
census are split up into some one hundred and 
seventy sects or denominations, and have no 
idea of abolishing the distinguishing lines. 
Our "union" celebrated in song and ^apotheo- 
sized in history is a political, not a religious 
union. Were it otherwise — say with Epis- 



IN OTHER LANDS 47 

copalianism or CongTegatio^alism or Roman- 
ism as the prevailing and predominating type 
— religious instruction in the schools would 
be determined by that type and would be 
accepted as a natural procedure. Such is 
practically the case in countries like Norway 
and Sweden. There is found a homogeneous 
population, fully ninety per cent of whom are 
allied with the Lutheran Church. In the 
primary and secondary schools doctrinal 
teaching is as unchallenged as it is in the 
churches, and no one has occasion to call 
them godless. Popular education is older in 
Sweden than in any other European country, 
and to this fact may be attributed in part the 
democratic tendencies so unmistakable in 
recent affairs. Socialism is on the increase, 
and the unrest of the people is more and more 
in evidence. It is well for the future of the 
country that the restraints as well as the in- 
centives of staunch religious beliefs will con- 
stitute a factor in any uprising or revolution 
that may occur. 

In Germany we have another country where 
the teachings of Martin Luther have been so 
widely accepted that the introduction of dog- 
matic instruction into the schools has fol- 



48 CKEED AND CUKEICULUM 

lowed as a natural consequence. Strong 
protest is now being offered against the char- 
acter of this instruction, and for opposite 
reasons. To religionists it is too pedantic 
and to educationists it is too unpedagogical. 
Four or five hours a week are assigned to this 
kind of instruction, Lutheran ministers tak- 
ing charge of the classes and imparting reli- 
gious knowledge according to the tenets of 
their own faith. More recently, the same door 
of opportunity has been opened to other 
denominations under the broadening influ- 
ence of the freer opinions of the present 
generation. In Germany, therefore, we have 
an example of a country of the highest educa- 
tional ideals bringing its elementary school 
system into complete yoke-fellowship with its 
church system. How much longer this prac- 
tice can be continued it would be difficult to 
say, as it must meet from year to year an 
ever-increasing tide of opposition from those 
classes of society which refuse to render sub- 
servience to dogmatic faiths. Perhaps Ger- 
many will even yet teach us how to avoid the 
shoals of dogma without abandoning the good 
ship of vital religion. 

France seems to have given every possible 



IN OTHEK LANDS 49 

emphasis to morals as a subject for school 
instruction, while the law provides for one 
day a week as a time for such religious in- 
struction outside the school as parents and 
pastors may wish to impart. Thus morals 
are taught and religion is recognized in the 
governmental scheme of education. There is 
some danger in this distinction between the 
two, and France has come into an unenviable 
reputation partly on account of it. Moral 
maxims are but so many pretty pictures, 
forms without vitality. No race and no indi- 
vidual ever became virtuous simply by enu- 
merating the virtues. France has been pain- 
fully careful about the teaching of morals, 
yet has no shining reputation for morality. 
In providing the week-day opportunity for 
religious instruction, however, she has gone 
further in the way of a formal approval of 
religion as an educational essential than have 
we as a nation in our present attitude or as 
a group of States in our various practices. 

Italy is hardly behind France in the codal 
provision for the teaching of morals in the 
gTaded schools. There is no definite arrange- 
ment, however, for the teaching of religion, 
dogmatism being considered evidently a 



50 CKEED AND CURKICULUM 

necessary and a dangerous concomitant. In 
district schools religious instruction is 
optional. When there is practical uniformity 
of religious belief in the commune, it is per- 
missible for priests or ministers to enter the 
school and give such counsel as may seem 
most suitable, or convey such knowledge as 
may best fit the needs and capacities of young 
Italy. After fifty years of history, United 
Italy is displaying an intellectual vigor and 
is taking an interest in the cause of popular 
education that augurs well for the coming 
years. The name of one of the daughters of 
Italy is now found frequently in educational 
periodicals and upon the lips of convention 
speakers. She is hailed as a pioneer in the 
use of a method which bears her own name. 
It may yet be discovered that Madame Mon- 
tessori is a symptom rather than a solecism. 
The historic shores of the Mediterranean are 
sending forth a light to glorify the high 
places of modern education. It is to be hoped 
that, no matter what course educational 
enterprises may take, the trend of popular 
elementary instruction will not be toward 
irreligion. In avoiding one extreme there is 
usually danger of swinging to another. This 



IN OTHER LANDS 51 

is a problem in Italy as it is in our own land, 
and great wisdom and great courage will be 
needed for its proper solution. 

The same observation may be made in 
regard to England, where the desire of the 
people seems to be for the recognition of reli- 
gion in secular education with the lines 
closely drawn against sectarianism. In fact, 
this has been for years a live question 
throughout the kingdom. Commendable 
progress has been made toward setting edu- 
cation free from the limitations of ecclesias- 
ticism. More and more, England has become 
democratized, a process which, of course, 
must affect and be affected by the conditions 
of popular education. The alliance of church 
and state is the conspicuous factor in the case. 

After pointing out conditions in various 
countries the last annual report of the New 
York State Department of Education gives 
conclusions as follows : 

"We have now gone as far as we ought in 
showing world interest in our subject, and 
something of the trend of opinion among 
other nations of widely different religious and 
educational circumstances. Wherever we 
miffht go we should find much the same thing. 



52 CEEED AND CUERICULUM 

Everywhere, morality is recognized as an im- 
perative factor in education. No objection is 
heard in any quarter against the inculcation 
of the moral virtues in the schools. Wherever 
substantially all the people are of one reli- 
gious sect, objection is, of course, not made 
to the propagation of the peculiar tenets of 
that sect through the schools. Where new 
and considerable factors have entered into the 
population and brought different religious 
beliefs with them, strong objection has been 
offered to the promotion of sectarian religion 
in the schools. This has been equally true 
where a people has enjoyed marked intellec- 
tual development." 

In a country of, for, and by the people the 
question is purely one of the popular will 
positively expressed or negatively withheld. 
Where the populace is heterogeneous the 
popular will is difficult to determine. In 
questions of this kind the will is a matter of 
creed and denominational attachment. The 
more varied the creeds and the more multi- 
tudinous the denominations, the more com- 
plicated is the situation. In addition, the 
American people have declared for toleration 
in religious matters and have boldly written 



IN OTHER LANDS 53 

it in the Constitution that they proposed to 
accord to each citizen the absolute right of 
free choice without governmental or legisla- 
tive interference. This means that even if the 
popular will should be determined by a ma- 
jority vote, the case is one in which the 
minority have rights that cannot be ignored. 
Here we have to do not with one but with 
scores of religious divisions. Some of these 
could be counted on to vote together on any 
proposition not directly affecting their own 
tenets. There would still be cleavages so 
many and so wide that unanimity is unthink- 
able. We are a complex people racially and 
religiously and we have agreed to a peaceful 
and tolerant complexity. This is American- 
ism. This Americanism of ours is a thing to 
be revered and perpetuated. It is sacred soil 
not to be desecrated, it is a holy treaty not 
to be violated. This problem of religion in 
the schools must be solved, if solved at all, 
without violence to the spirit of our glorious 
Americanism. It is our hope and our con- 
viction, moreover, that this very ideal or con- 
cept that we proudly call Americanism con- 
tains within itself the successful solution of 
the problem of religion in American public 



54 CEEED AND CUKEICULUM 

schools. When we understand ourselves bet- 
ter we shall be better prepared for this and 
for many other duties arising out of rapidly 
changing social, political, and industrial con- 
ditions. If Americanism is the big thing we 
believe it to be, it is big enough to carry every 
load that the new age has put upon it. The 
ultimate dispersion of the darkness in which 
many of our most vital issues are now envel- 
oped is as sure as the morrow's dawn. 



THE TESTIMONY OF PRIMITIVE MAN 

"All gentlemen have the same religion.'' 

"What religion is that?'' 

"No gentleman will ever tell." 

This familiar statement, question, and an- 
swer, having been assigned a more or less 
respectable place in literature, will serve as a 
reminder of the present need of gentlemanli- 
ness in matters having to do with religion. 
A man does not compromise himself, nor 
should he be held false to his convictions when 
for the sake of peace and progress he puts his 
religious beliefs into the background and 
advances only such as will meet the emer- 
gency. Unless this principle be accepted we 
may well desjDair of any more intimate and 
effective affiliation between our public schools 
and our public morals. No citizen is asked 
to transfer his attachments, to alter his creed, 
or to forswear the faith of his fathers even to 
effect the elevation of his generation to 
clearer moral atmospheres. It is incumbent 
upon us all, however, to perform the gentle- 

55 



56 CKEED AND CUERICULUM 

manly office of respecting each the preference 
and conviction of the other by remaining 
silent when speech will give offense and by 
speaking when silence would impede true 
progress. How many of us may be magnani- 
mous enough to practice such a virtue can be 
determined only by actual test. It is a clear 
question of intelligence and character. 

Gerhart Hauptmann, philosopher and poet, 
recently winner of the Nobel Prize for Litera- 
ture, on his fiftieth birthday wrote an article 
in which he gave his views as to the religion 
of the future. The first paragraph reads: 
"Tolerance is the religion of the future. It 
is based upon complete consideration for 
one's neighbor. Without tolerance there is no 
liberty. There is, to be sure, a religious truth, 
but it is not of such a form that it precludes 
many-sided religious truths. The tolerant 
Chinaman says, ^Brother, how beautiful is 
thy religion !' " 

We are not ready to make a religion of 
tolerance, but we must admit that intoler- 
ance is an evidence of the falsity rather than 
of the truth of any religion. When Protes- 
tant, Eomanist, and Jew clasp hands for the 
advancement of the common cause of truth. 



TESTIMONY OF PRIMITIVE MAN 57 

still loving their own religions, but loving 
religion more, then shall we speedily eat of 
the fruit of tolerance, which is an abiding 
faith that inspires to righteousness. This 
faith is the birthright of every child receiving 
instruction in our public schools. At present, 
many are being robbed of this birthright 
by suspicion and jealousy — detestable mis- 
creants, masquerading as defenders, but per- 
forming the works of the devil. 

The time has come in our rather dis- 
cursive treatment of the subject when we 
should proceed to get into the possession of 
such concrete facts as may enable us to formu- 
late finally some reasonable plan of action. 
It seems natural and perfectly logical to in- 
terrogate the history of education to discover 
what light it has to throw upon our path- 
way. We are not attempting an elaborate 
scientific treatise, otherwise we might be com- 
pelled to perform the arduous labor of ana- 
lyzing systems, tabulating statistics, and 
balancing theories. Such w^ork to be conclu- 
sive would require a degree of scholarly 
attainment to Avhich the writer has no claim, 
but he begs to suggest it as a theme that might 
worthily occupy the brain of the deepest 



58 CEEED AND CUEEICULUM 

thinker and the time of the most patient in- 
vestigator. 

For present purposes it will be sufficient 
to allude to certain familiar phases of edu- 
cational development, such as may be studied 
in the threefold classification — Primitive, 
Non-Christian, and Christian peoples. 

In no age has the primitive man been given 
so much attention as in our own. The impor- 
tance of the subject is realized as it never has 
been. Modern theories of education require 
a knowledge of the origins of the educative 
process to substantiate themselves. If the 
'history of the race is recapitulated in the 
career of the child, then we are fitted to deal 
with the child whose psychology is that of the 
undisciplined denizen of forest and fastness, 
only as we understand the manifestations of 
the human mind under the most primitive 
conditions. Vice versa, it can be said that the 
better we understand the child the better we 
can interpret the savage. Only thus can we 
construct on sure foundations the educational 
theory that will result in wise educative prac- 
tices. 

Turning, then, to the primitive man as he 
has been described to us by anthropologists, 



TESTIMONY OF PRIMITIVE MAN 59 

and remembering that he is not only the an- 
cestor of civilized races, but exists to-day in 
certain quarters of the world in all his rude- 
ness and crudeness, we find that he is first 
and foremost all and in all religious, and 
that all recognized cultural powers and pro- 
clivities are traceable to this trait and tend- 
ency. In the primitive man's religious nature 
we find the fountain head of all distinctively 
educational activities. The religious instinct, 
and the attempt to relate themselves to un- 
seen powers resulted in the weird ceremonials 
of savage tribes. Ceremonials required ad- 
ministrants — ^hence the priestly class. The 
need of instruction in ceremonial secrets and 
observances developed the teaching functions 
and produced the teaching class. As we read 
in Monroe's Text Book on the History of Edu- 
cation, "The inquiry into the meaning of these 
ceremonials and the attempt at a further in- 
terpretation of doctrines beyond that given 
to the multitude gave rise to the first real 
process of instruction and the first distinct 
educational institutions." The text is accom- 
panied by a remarkable photograph of an 
initiation scene by Shamans of a tribe in cen- 
tral Australia. It is a long, long reach from 



60 CREED AND CURRICULUM 

that instructional ceremony to the exercises 
in a modern school or college classroom, but 
the antecedent relationship of the former to 
the latter is as certain as that of seed to 
harvest. The intrinsically religious nature of 
the primitive man is shown in his attempt to 
explain natural phenomena by attributing 
them to the operations of spiritual agencies. 
This belief we call animism — it is religion in 
its simplest terms. Out of it the dogmas of 
the ages have grown. To quote a writer in 
the Encyclopedia Britannica, "The history of 
animism once clearly traced would record the 
development, not of religion only, but of 
philosophy, science, and literature." 

The cultural importance of this streak of re- 
ligious aptitude fundamental in human nature 
is illustrated in a recent volume by E. N. 
and G. E. Partridge on so entrancing and 
practical a subject as Story Telling in School 
and Home: "If one would understand the 
origin of stories, he must put himself, in im- 
agination, into the conditions, both inner and 
outer, in which primitive man lived. He will 
see that life must have been saturated in a 
mood which, broadly speaking, was religious. 
The religious mood, however, is not merely a 



TESTIMONY OF PRIMITIVE MAN 61 

passive feeling, but is alive with eagerness to 
know, with a sense of a vast unknown beyond 
the small clearing in the universe of facts 
which the mind has been able to make. It is 
an aptitude of desire. Fear and awe express 
human longings — longings which sometimes 
cannot be spoken nor even whispered to one- 
self." 

True to their genetic philosophy, the 
authors of this interesting book have shown 
how these primitive stories and ancient myths 
arose out of fundamental needs and desires. 
The religious "mood" is in reality an inevi- 
table and universal trait among the luntu- 
tored. It is as closely identified with the 
primitive man's sentient self as atmosphere 
with lungs and blood with heart. It was, it 
is, the humanity of the human animal. We 
cannot deal wath ethnic history and ignore 
this generic symptom. Religion is a part of 
the racial cosmos. This is the starting point 
of human history. Back of this it is futile 
to attempt to penetrate. The finite intelli- 
gence cannot circumscribe infinity. Religi- 
osity of mind can be explained no better than 
nebulosity of matter. Out of the nebulae, 
however, we can track the evolving worlds. 



62 CKEED AND CUEKICULUM 

and out of the religious mood we can track 
the evolution of education. One may claim 
that just as nebula has become system, so 
religion has become intelligence, and it is to 
be studied as a characteristic of chaos rather 
than a culmination of creative energy. That 
is, from this viewpoint, the educative process 
has carried us up and beyond the need of the 
religious incentive and therefore the school 
of an improved age may ignore religion save 
as a phenomenon of primitive epochs. It is 
indeed regrettable that there are some 
learned ones among us who hang their argu- 
ments on such filmy threads and will declare 
that high civilization has passed through and 
is forever above the need of supernatural in- 
fluences. The fire-stuff of the nebula has 
become the planet-stuff of the system. Chang- 
ing configurations do not argue change in 
content and substance. Man is still a 
spiritual being, however far he may have 
advanced from and beyond primitive condi- 
tions and conceptions. Keligion is an eternal 
necessity. The constitution of the child calls 
for spiritual adjustment just as the mind of 
primitive man constructs an animistic world 
for itself in response to its own appeal. 



TESTIMONY OF PRIMITIVE MAN 63 

That society is obligated to assist in the 
adjustment is hardly open to controversy. 
The method and measure of such assistance 
are problematical. How large a share the 
school must take in the work is to be deter- 
mined. If the experience of the ages is to 
be put at the disposal of the indiyidual the 
school is, of all institutions, the one best 
equipped to contribute the knowledge of the 
rudiments of religious development. The 
emotional and doctrinal phases of experi- 
mental and theoretical religion may still lie 
more strictly within the province of home 
and church nurturing, but the foundations of 
the spiritual and moral structure in thou- 
sands of cases are to be planted, if at all, by 
the instruction of the classroom. This child 
of ours, thank heaven, does not live under the 
tutelage of wizards, exorcists, and medicine 
men, nor do we paint his body with totem 
symbols. For him civilization provides a 
school and teacher. Thus we link him with 
the w^orld and with the ages. 

Having already referred to the book on 
Story-Telling by E. N. and G. E. Partridge, 
it is very satisfying to note that the authors 
have inserted a chapter on "The Child's Reli- 



64 CREED AND CUEEICULUM 

gion." The following quotation lends itself 
perfectly to the purpose of our argument : 

"Eeligion is a means of preserving and 
expressing such attitudes of the individual 
as will foster the completion in him of the 
growth which nature itself is trying to carry 
on ; a process in which he is to be transformed 
from a playing irresponsible child to a work- 
ing devoted adult. Religion is an attitude 
that keeps him balanced in this transforma- 
tion, and true to the course of development. 

"If this be true, the inculcation of an ade- 
quate God-consciousness must b^ the work 
not merely of the church but of all institu- 
tions which undertake to influence the child: 
the school, the home, the playground. Such 
teaching by no means ends, nor perhaps 
begins, with the teaching of the Bible and the 
tenets of the Christian religion. Much of 
secular culture goes directly to the desired 
end'' (p. 128). 

Much harm has been done by the current 
overemphasis on the distinction between 
"secular'' and "sacred." Thus many seem to 
regard religion as something quite aside from 
the practical considerations of everyday life. 
One of the advantages of teaching religion 



TESTIMONY OF PRIMITIVE MAN 65 

in public schools would be the inculcation of 
the belief that all things secular have a 
spiritual significance, and that all things 
spiritual have a secular application. 



VI 

PEIMITIVE MAN AND EDUCATION 

The inferences to be drawn from a study of 
education among primitive peoples are so 
significant and the subject itself is of such 
engrossing interest that it seems impossible 
to dismiss it without some further comment. 

In the broadest sense, the acquirement of 
knowledge of any sort and the development of 
skill in any direction may be considered as a 
part of the educational career of the indi- 
vidual. The children of the most savage races 
surely acquire some knowledge of their envi- 
ronment and some power of adjusting them- 
selves to it through the instinctive imitation 
of their elders. Nor is it quite possible to 
conceive a state of savagery so absolute that 
the adults of such a society will make no 
conscious attempts to direct the child mind 
in its unfolding and the child hand in its 
groping. The requirements imposed by 
nature, such as food, clothing, and shelter, are 
to be obtained by some more or less intelli- 
gent effort, and when the individual has 

66 



PRIMITIVE MAN AND EDUCATION 67 

learned how to meet these demands he is 
educated to this extent, if we wish so to apply 
the term. Yet, antithetically, he has no edu- 
cation. Had not some families of the race 
been endowed with higher aspirations than 
those represented in satisfying the barest 
demands of the physical nature, the word 
"education" would never have been heard on 
this planet, and there would be no schools, no 
churches, no courts, no bridges arching the 
roaring rivers, and no steamers churning the 
brine, no literature, no history. Some misan- 
thrope may say, " 'Twere better so." For 
such as he, perhaps, he may speak truly. For 
the rest of us, we are glad to be living in an 
age from whose towering height we can look 
back over the rugged slopes along which hope- 
ful centuries haye trailed their way to mas- 
tery. 

The history of education epitomizes the 
march of mankind from the midnight of 
savagery to the midday of civilization. 
Always the spur of the marching and the 
fighting has been man's unwillingness to be 
satisfied with mere physical necessities. His 
own restlessness created new appetites as 
soon as the old appetite was appeased. He 



68 CREED AND CURRICULUM 

was not satisfied with the testimony of his 
eyes that his earth home bore such and such 
appearances. He demanded explanations. 
He invented answers. Hunting and fishing, 
playing and fighting, mating and reproducing 
his kind, were sufficient for the primitive man 
as an animal. But he was more than an 
animal. The mind has its hunger as well as 
the body. So there came incantations and 
sorceries, initiations and sacrifices, symbol- 
isms and ceremonies, shrines and temples, 
priests and teachers, schools^ — education in the 
real sense. Somewhere back in the wild cere- 
monialisms of primitive worship lurked the 
germ of all the sciences and of all the humani- 
ties. That was the childhood of the race — a 
childhood reproducing itself in every child, 
psychologically considered. Nature provides 
a foundation for all learning in the spiritual 
sensibilities of the child. Upon that founda- 
tion let the superstructure stand, defiant of 
blowing wind and beating wave, for it is 
builded upon a rock. Further, let the little 
learner understand, as early as he may, the 
sources of his strength as the long centuries 
have revealed them. Otherwise, education 
wanders and wabbles. Some present-daj 



PKIMITIVE MAN AND EDUCATION 69 

failures in cultural enterprises are due un- 
doubtedly to our strange timidity in ap- 
proaching these basic and sacred duties. It 
is not a matter for the home, it is not a matter 
for the church exclusively; it is a matter of 
scientific and complete education, a matter of 
dealing faithfully with the whole child — 
physical, mental, moral — therefore, a matter 
primarily and preeminently for the public 
school. 

Much of the meaning of Totemism is still 
shrouded in mystery, but the monumental 
work of Frazer in his Totemism and Exog- 
amy throws the high lights of modern and 
exhaustive research upon the difficult sub- 
ject. As a possible corrective of unwarranted 
conclusions, Mr. Andrew Lang's The Secret 
of the Totem may be read. "Totem'' is an 
O jib way work given to classes of material 
objects which the savage regards with super- 
stitious respect. Totemism is of immense 
significance, as it affects both society and 
religion. In its religious aspect, distinctions 
are discovered similar to those made by more 
civilized people between "right" and "wrong." 
The relation of the sexes was determined in 
accordance with totemistic beliefs. This is 



70 CEEED AND CURRICULUM 

the question ever thrusting itself into the 
foreground of the realm of morals, and it 
seems evident that moral responsibilities were 
first recognized as religious implications 
rather than as social expedients. What sig- 
nifies this? That morality and religion are 
interrelated as warp and woof of the same tex- 
ture. Does not culture presuppose character? 
Character is the painting produced by the 
colors from the palette of morals, whose pig- 
ments are found in the religious motive. The 
order follows: no pigment, no blending, no 
picture. In other words, the experience of 
the race from its earliest childhood teaches 
the fundamental and intrinsic value of reli- 
gious concepts, demonstrates their procreative 
relationship to moral ideas and practices, 
proves their cultural efficiency. 



VII 

AN AMERICAN CRITICISM AND AN 
AUSTRALIAN EXPERIMENT 

Now^ to return from the remote primitive 
to the immediate present — for our discussion 
aims to be practical rather than philosophi- 
cal — why such a deliverance as this from a 
correspondent of Harper's Weekly? 

"Teachers Who Don^t Know 

"We of the United States seem to have 
turned the Bible out of the public schools and 
put in the flag, and, since religion is needed 
in education, the disposition is now to have a 
flag religion with an appropriate ritual. 

"Better than none, no doubt. Its defects, 
at least, are like the defects of other religions. 
It is adopted and straightway inconsiderate 
people want to enforce it by compulsion. As 
if that had not been sufficiently tried out in 
the last thousand years. If it were ordered 
that public-school children should read the 
Bible and some of them wouldn't, to compel 
them would be recognized as religious perse- 

71 



72 CKEED AND CURRICULUM 

cution. But when it is ordered that they shall 
salute the flag and a few take a notion not to, 
the compulsory measures that sometimes fol- 
low are not recognized as of the family of our 
old friend who kindled fires at Smithfield and 
was so handy with the thumbscrew and the 
rack. 

"Two little school-girls in Salt Lake City 
got the idea that they were Socialists (a 
paper says) and wouldn't salute the flag. 
Whereupon the Utah State Teachers' Asso- 
ciation, finding a lack of temporal authority 
to regulate these young politicians, passed a 
recommendation for an amendment to the 
State Constitution making the teaching of 
patriotism compulsory in the public schools. 

"Who will teach these teachers, first, that 
the State Constitution is not a fit place to 
record rules about schools, and, second, that 
compulsory patriotism, like compulsory reli- 
gion, is not worth anything when taught? 
Don't the teachers know that our flag stands 
for freedom and that freedom is a condition 
from which unnecessary compulsions have 
been eliminated?" 

How we do detest compulsion in this land 
o' freedom! That is, when compulsion hits 



CRITICISM AND EXPERIMENT 73 

the sore spot. Compulsory education? Yes, 
indeed. Compulsory arithmetic, compulsory 
grammar, compulsory geography, compulsory 
music, compulsory dressmaking, compulsory 
composition, compulsory gymnastics, compul- 
sory dramatics — but compulsory patriotism, 
compulsory religion! Smoke of Smithfield 
fires! Yet Smithfield is only a London 
market. 

No! No! The cause of religious liberty 
enjoys a perfect and a permanent triumph. 
We are in no peril of tyranny, except the 
tyranny of our prejudices. The vigilance 
which is the price of our liberty is a pet occu- 
pation with us. We shall not exercise our- 
selves the less in this direction when we prac- 
tice compulsion in fundamentals the more. 

It is not expected that the child shall be 
coerced into religious forms of forbidding 
aspect and loaded with dogmas difficult of 
comprehension. Any true religious education 
adjusts itself to the fact of individuality and 
to the certainty of change. Courage is better 
than consistency. Unanimity in beliefs is 
not to be expected. The religious instruction 
imparted in church and home rarely considers 
this vital truth with sufficient wisdom and 



74 CEEED AND CURRICULUM 

boldness. All the more necessity is there for 
the scientific kind of instruction that could 
be presented under public school auspices. 
Professor Jenks, in Citizenship and the 
Schools, has put the case plainly and sympa- 
thetically: "Even in religious institutions 
changes come that bring often untold suffer- 
ing. I need only refer to the persecutions of 
the Middle Ages and the Reformation. Even 
to-day, men burn, though not at the stake, 
because they think in advance of their time. 
Many a person joining a church in his younger 
days finds that as his sympathies broaden, as 
his range of spiritual vision extends, he no 
longer places the same emphasis on certain 
dogmas as before. His fellow church mem- 
bers may consider him unfaithful to his duty; 
he may even be made to feel that he has 
wounded grievously the hearts of those most 
dear to him — but he cannot go back. He may 
in his suffering impatiently blame his critics 
for their narrowness; but this is equally un- 
just. They cannot come with him. No one is 
to blame. The religious institution is not 
adjustable to his needs. When he reaches the 
height from which he can overlook the whole 
field he will see that, as there must be differ- 



CRITICISM AND EXPERIMENT 75 

ent political or social groups to suit the vari- 
ous political or social beliefs, so must there 
be various religious groups to fit the changing 
religious needs." 

Under the proper guidance the pupil ad- 
vancing through childhood and adolescence 
to maturity would come to understand the 
beauty of loyalty to the institutions of his 
fathers as well as the glory of the liberty 
wherewith he has been set free. Loyalty and 
liberty! — ^words musical with meaning. To 
have our young people well trained in both 
would mean life to the nation. The school 
must do its part. 

The Indian who held the turtle as his totem 
was living on the low mental plane where it 
was perfectly reasonable to believe that his 
tribe originated with a giant turtle who suc- 
ceeded in throwing off his immense shell and, 
freed from that encumbrance, grew to the 
likeness and proportions of a man. Other 
tribes explained their origins in similarly 
grotesque fashions. Such beliefs are in them- 
selves marks of the savage state. Perhaps, 
occasionally, it would occur to some member 
of the tribe to question the correctness of the 
story, to pry into its authenticity. Perhaps 



76 CREED AND CURRICULUM 

not. That some sinned in not observing the 
prescribed signs of reverence for the totemic 
animal is evident, as punishments were pre- 
scribed to fit the crime. Transgression is a 
sign neither of savagery nor civilization. 
Children cry and pout and fib and fight to-day 
just as they have ever done, and just as their 
elders do in the style characteristic of their 
years. Sin still lieth at the door millenniums 
after the poet of Genesis wrote his imperish- 
able Scripture. Let us follow no chimeras, 
neither let us raise alarming bugaboos. 
Teaching religion in the schools has not and 
will not solve all our moral and social prob- 
lems. Yet in these days of clamoring for 
"social justice,'' it will be well to think of 
"spiritual justice,'' and on this ground alone 
to recognize the right of every young Ameri- 
can to definite instruction in the things that 
have to do with the spirit and its destiny. 

To illustrate the practicability of such a 
course, the following is appended. It is taken 
from a circular recently issued in the course 
of a campaign for a better system in the 
schools of Victoria, Australia : 

"It is now desired that Victoria shall fall 
into line with these States (New South 



CKITICISM AND EXPERIMENT 77 

Waleg, West Australia, and Tasmania) and 
adopt the New South Wales system. 

"The New South Wales Act, Clauses 7, 17, 
and 18, provides : 

" 7. In all Schools under this Act the teaching shall 
be strictly nonsectarian, but the words 'Secular 
Instruction' shall be held to include general re- 
ligious teaching as distinguished from dog- 
matical or polemical theology. Under this 
clause the school-teacher in school hours gives 
selected Bible lessons from a book provided for 
the purpose, but is not allowed to give sectarian 
teaching. 

"17. Any minister of religion is entitled in school 
hours, on days to be arranged with the School 
Committee, to give children of his own de- 
nomination, separated from others, an hour's 
religious instruction. 

"18. Any parent may withdraw his child from all 
religious teaching if he objects to such religious 
instruction being given." 

Here also is an instructive bit of corre- 
spondence : 

"Sir: 

"In compliance with your personal request, 
I have the honor to furnish the following in- 
formation in connection with the religious 
instruction given in the Public Schools of 
this State. 



78 CREED AND CURRICULUM 

"As you are aware, the teaching in our 
schools is strictly nonsectarian, but general 
religious teaching, as distinguished from dog- 
matic theology, forms part of the course of 
secular instruction as provided in Section 7 
of the Public Instruction Act. A copy of the 
Act is forwarded under separate cover. At- 
tention is invited to Clauses 7, 17, and 18. 

"This religious teaching is placed on 
exactly the same footing as geography, gram- 
mar, or any other subject, and at the annual 
inspection of schools. Scripture receives the 
same consideration as any other subject. In 
the junior classes, when children are unable 
to read, all lessons are given orally in the 
form of stories drawn from the authorized 
Scripture lessons on the Old and New Testa- 
ment. In classes above the second, the Irish 
National Board's Scripture Lesson Books are 
regularly read and lessons in Civics and 
Morals are given as provided in the Syllabus 
of Instruction, a copy of which is also for- 
warded. All teachers, irrespective of creed, 
are required to teach these Scripture lessons, 
and in no case has any refusal to do so taken 
place, nor has any complaint been made to 
the Department that the lessons have been 



CRITICISM AND EXPERIMENT 79 

ridiculed or made liglit of. Section 18 of the 
Act and the Regulations framed thereunder 
allow a parent to withdraw his children from 
all religious instruction by notifying his wish 
in writing to the teacher. As a matter of fact, 
such notifications are so few that for statisti- 
cal purposes they may be said not to exist. 
The general outcome of the instruction is 
that all pupils receive a substantial knowl- 
edge of Scripture history, and are made 
acquainted with the moral teaching con- 
tained in the Bible. 

"With a view of obtaining a wide expres- 
sion of opinion upon the question as to 
whether the Irish National Board's Scripture 
Lessons are advantageous in promoting the 
moral and intellectual education of the pupils 
in Public Schools, a circular was addressed 
to all inspectors of schools under this De- 
partment, requesting them to state their 
views upon the matter. It was found that the 
large majority of these officers expressed a 
decided opinion that the Scripture lessons are 
calculated to exercise a beneficial effect upon 
the pupils, both morally and intellectually. 
The following extracts from the report of one 
of our most experienced inspectors may be 



80 CREED AND CURRICULUM 

taken as representing tlie true value of the 
lessons : 

"In cases where teachers deal with the books as they 
would with ordinary class books, giving an intelligent 
exposition of the subject matter of the lesson, testing 
by an examination to what extent the pupils compre- 
hend its scope and meaning, and dwelling with judicious 
force and impressiveness upon such points of religion 
and morals as these lessons inculcate, there can be no 
doubt whatever of the benefits accruing. 

"Outside this general instruction, Section 
17 of the Act provides for what is called reli- 
gious instruction. Any recognized clergyman 
or other teacher authorized by his church has 
the right to give to the children of his own 
denomination one hour's religious instruction 
daily. Unlike the general instruction, this may 
consist of worship and purely sectarian teach- 
ing. It is given during the ordinary school 
hours, and where two or more clergymen of 
different denominations visit, the teacher, 
the clergyman, and the School Board find no 
difficulty in making arrangements to suit all 
concerned. As a rule, no teacher of special 
religious instruction visits more than once a 
week. In the majority of cases the clergymen 
visit the schools in the morning, but should 
the hour prove inconvenient, the matter is 



CEITICISM AND EXPERIMENT 81 

one for mutual arrangement between the 
clergymen and the teachers, and is invariably 
settled without any friction. Although the 
time set apart for religious instruction is one 
hour, as a rule clergymen, on becoming aware 
that secular instruction is divided into lessons 
of forty-five minutes each throughout the day, 
limit their instruction to a like period in 
order to conform with the school time-table. 

"At a conference of teachers, inspectors, 
departmental officers, and prominent educa- 
tionalists, held in Sydney in April, 1904, the 
heads of the various religious denominations 
within the State were present, and delivered 
addresses on Ethics, Civics, and Morals, in 
which the question of religious instruction in 
our schools was introduced. A copy of this 
conference report is forwarded under sepa- 
rate cover, and may be of interest to you, 
especially in connection with the subject 
under consideration. 

"I may add that no sectarian difficulties 
are found in working the clauses of the Public 
Instruction Act providing for general or 
special religious instruction to the children 
attending our State schools. The system has 
always formed a part of the school routine 



82 CKEED AND CURRICULUM 

here, and probably only a very small percent- 
age of parents would like any change made. 

"During the year 1905 the total number of 
visits paid to State schools by clergymen or 
other religious teachers, for the purpose of 
important special religious instruction to 
children of their own denomination, was 
42,481. Detailed information is given in the 
subjoined table: 

Church of England 23,769 

Roman Catholic 797 

Presbyterian 7,150 

Methodist 7,373 

Other Denominations 3,387 

"I have the honor to be. Sir, 

"Your obedient servant, 

"P. Board, Under-Secretary" 

The above was obtained, with many other 
letters, by the Queensland Bible in State 
Schools League. The correspondence is from 
educational officials and is overwhelmingly 
favorable to the New South Wales system. 
Do we need a "Religion in the Public Schools 
League''? Can Australia teach America? 



VIII 
PRE-CHRISTIAN NATIONS 

Marvelous is the moving picture ! 

Marvelous especially when reproducing 
successive stages of development in animal 
and vegetable life. From the newly deposited 
egg to the mature frog jumping for the luck- 
less fly, no moment of the transitional process 
seems to be missed. From the first appearing 
of the bud to the perfectly formed flower with 
expanding petals the entire story is revealed. 
What nature requires months to perform, the 
magic film accomplishes in minutes. 

Could we but study history in the same 
manner, we might understand things now in- 
comprehensible, A vast chasm lies between 
what we know of man the primitive creature 
and man the constructor and citizen of a 
great state. Primitive traits persist. We 
have seen the play and power of religious 
sentiment over the primitive mind. It will be 
recognized as no less conspicuous a factor in 
the educational enterprises of the nations 
that first took the form of civilization. 

83 



84 CEEED AND CUERICULUM 

As the student switches his attention from 
the tribal to the national institutions of 
earlier times, two facts come clearly into 
view. One is that every nation had its dis- 
tinctive educational policy, and the second is 
that religion exercised a mighty influence 
and occupied a prominent position in every 
case. To-day, these facts may have great or 
little significance according to the proclivi- 
tes of the commentator. One will say that 
they but characterize an age when men were 
yet incapable of discerning the essential dis- 
tinction between church and state and that 
they but mark a period long, long antedating 
the birth of the republic in an entirely new 
age. Another* will say that the persistence 
of the religious habit and the perpetuation of 
religious belief and ceremonial is sufficient 
evidence of the supreme dignity and authority 
of the religious concept, and of its inalienable 
right to priority among the cultural pursuits 
of the most advanced nations in this great 
age of advancement. 

Pre-Christian nations supported their reli- 
gious systems and exalted their religious 
leaders. False, crude, absurd, dangerous as 
those systems may have been, they neverthe- 



PRE-CHEISTIAN NATIONS 85 

less kept alive the grain of truth and minis- 
tered marvelously to the progress of man- 
kind. Without them and their efficacy the 
ancient world would have had no torch to 
pass on to the modern world and Christianity 
would have found no soil in which to take 
Tjoot. The ancients did well in the main to 
magnify religion and to subordinate educa- 
tion thereto. 

In the later days of ancient Rome, in the 
days before the glory departed and decadence 
precipitated disaster, three illustrious men 
towered above their fellows as educational 
theorists — Cicero, Seneca, Quintilian. Two 
of these men were contemporaries of Jesus of 
Nazareth. The other was born but two or 
three years after the tragedy of Calvary. 
They were not drawn under the influence of 
the great Galilsean, but they all emphasized in 
philosophy and practice the importance of 
moral and religious culture. To all of them 
education without this element would have 
seemed fragmentary and feeble. Seneca's 
principle that goodness constitutes the su- 
preme end of life is worthy of acceptance to 
the end of time, and as long as it is espoused 
the cause of religion will not suffer neglect. 



86 CEEED AND CUERICULUM 

In still earlier days of Rome, far back before 
Greek influence molded Roman thought, the 
content of education embraced religion and 
choral service along with the Law of the 
Twelve Tables, practical business training for 
boys, and household duties for girls. One 
would judge that these old Romans actually 
maintained a beautiful balance between the 
cultural and the practical, a balance not yet 
secured in the history of education in 
America. We are working toward it, but 
need not expect to achieve it by evading the 
question of religion in public schools, how- 
ever delicate it may seem to be. 

The apostle Paul easily perceived that the 
Greeks were very religious — religious in the 
sense that they gave much attention to reli- 
gious rites and disputations. Of course this 
disposition influenced their educational 
methods. It was so thoroughly a part of the 
Greek habit of thought that Greek education 
could not proceed in indifference toward it. 
Bravery and reverence in the man of action 
was the Homeric ideal. The Spartans were 
neglectful of intellectual training and cared 
little for artistic or literary attainments, but 
morality was closely allied with citizenship, 



PEE-CHEISTIAN NATIONS 87 

and what music they had was mainly religious. 
The Spartan boy sang of the gods of his 
fathers as did the Spartan soldier as he rushed 
into battle. 

In ancient Athens the educational content 
was incorporated under two main divisions, 
gymnastics and music. Music then included 
religion, with poetry, drama, oratory, science, 
and civics. This was accomplished, further- 
more, under a definite school system con- 
trolled by the state. The period of so-called 
New Greek Education seems to have been 
marked by a decline in respect for religious 
instruction, with the result that skepticism 
and selfishness came to characterize the age. 

Those mighty thinkers of the ancient 
world, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, 
grappled with problems of the spirit from the 
standpoint of knowledge rather than from 
that of unreasoning faith or traditional forms 
of worship, but they strove for moral better- 
ment with a truly religious enthusiasm, and 
their doctrines became in part the basis for 
Christian theology. For Aristotle, goodness 
became the end of existence for individual and 
state, and it was the prerogative of the state 
to shape its educational policy to that end. 



88 CEEED AND CURRICULUM 

Those who now contend for more attention 
to religion on the part of our appointed edu- 
cators are actuated by much the same pur- 
pose. Real religion and real goodness seem 
to us joined in an eternal compact, and while 
moral strength may have been exhibited in 
many cases without acknowledgment of a 
religious obligation, yet religion that does not 
eventuate in goodness brands itself as false 
or ignorant, and goodness glorifies itself by 
reflecting glory on the religion that in- 
spires it. 

Among the Persians, Zoroaster became the 
great prophet and legislator, and under the 
religious system bearing his name a strong 
race of men arose loving truth, justice, and 
self-control. After seven years of age the boy 
belonged absolutely to the state, which was 
as solicitous for his moral as for his physical 
development. 

Only a devotedly religious race could have 
produced such Scriptures as compose the 
Bible. First in the home and later in the 
schools of the prophets, the Hebrews were 
instructed in the ways of Jehovah with such 
solemnity and with such persistency that a 
practical theocracy was maintained for cen- 



PKE-CHKISTIAN NATIONS 89 

turies, and the race stood for religion as the 
Eomans did for law and the Greeks for cul- 
ture. 

One of the chief aims of Hindu education 
was preparation for the life to come. Among 
the Chinese it was the mastery of the sacred 
books. The Egyptians were completely domi- 
nated by the priests — in the pursuit of learn- 
ing as well as in the perpetuation of religious 
rites. History's great debt to religion is un- 
challenged. In the examples of the pre-Chris- 
tian nations we see religion either conspicu- 
ously present in, ruling over, or practically 
synonymous with education. 

What matters this to us? As a fact, it can 
be reasonably presented to the minds of our 
school children and should become to them 
one of the incentives toward the study of and 
respect for the religious institutions of the 
times. It would seem also amply to support 
the conclusion that there is in our common 
humanity a desire and capacity for religion 
that is entitled to the cognizance of those who 
are responsible for the educational policy of 
our country. 

To indulge once more in a favorable quota- 
tion, let us give attention to an article in 



90 CKEED AND CUERICULUM 

a recent number of the Indian School Jour- 
nal, written by Milton Fairchild, of the Na- 
tional Institute for Moral Instruction, on 
"Moral Education in Schools and Its Relation 
to Religious Education" : 

"It is a matter of great concern, both for 
those in charge of public schools and those 
interested in religious education, that the 
boys and girls be given strong incitement to 
moral development. The argument for reli- 
gious education in public schools gets its 
force very largely from the need felt by par- 
ents, clergy, and school men for stronger in- 
fluence over the character of the boys and 
girls and their enlightenment as to right and 
wrong. The proposal that morals be taught 
in public schools just as other subjects are 
taught and as if morality had no reference to 
religion but were concerned exclusively with 
the affairs of human life upon earth, has never 
won general approval. As a matter of fact, 
the moral life of parents, of clergy, and teach- 
ers is directly related to their experience, to 
their religion, and the judgment that the 
child should be encouraged to recognize the 
direct relation between morals and religion 
is almost universal. There is no necessity for 



PRE-CHRISTIAN NATIONS 91 

teaching morals in public schools in such a 
way as to imply anything but this intimate 
relationship between morals and religion. 
The schools can teach the old, old, old morality 
which is guiding the lives of religious people — 
parents, clergy, and teachers — and by refrain- 
ing from definite reference and instruction in 
religious doctrine avoid all complications 
with the principle of separation between 
church and state. 

"A child will be a unit in its personal ex- 
periences, and in its church it will receive 
religious instruction and the moral instruc- 
tion related thereto; the same will be true of 
the child's experience in its home. As a 
result the child's life will be religious in its 
own experience. If the school assumes this 
child religion as a basis for moral education, 
and proceeds to instruct the child in the appli- 
cation of general principles of morality to 
the details of everyday life in lessons on such 
topics as ^Conduct Becoming in a Gentle- 
man,' ^What People Think about Boys' 
Fights,' What I Am Going to Do When I 
Am Grown Up,' ^Sportsmanship,' ^Thrift,' 
Womanliness,' etc., then the emphasis given 
thus in school on the serious side of life will 



92 CEEED AND CUEKICULUM 

dispose the children to keener interest in the 
religion taught them in their churches and 
homes, and the whole life of the child, the 
week day as well as Sunday, will be per- 
meated by a natural unified personal interest 
in both morality and religion. 

• • • • • • • 

"A serious detriment to the life of the 
nation is caused by the slipping away of boys 
and girls from all religious afflliations. A 
desirable result is that Catholic boys and girls 
continue throughout manhood and woman- 
hood good Catholics, and out of this lifelong 
church relationship gain their highest reli- 
gious development; also that Protestant boys 
and girls maintain a lifelong relationship to 
their churches, and Jewish boys and girls 
to their Jewish religious institutions. The 
school ought not to interfere with this con- 
tinuous church interest. Morality ought to 
be taught in school in such a way as to 
strengthen the interest of boys and girls in 
the serious side of life and dispose them to 
the maintenance of lifelong interest in reli- 
gious institutions." 



IX 

THE GKEAT TEACHER 

In the recent issue of Medical Inspection of 
Our Schools, by Gulick and Ayres, the argu- 
ment for medical inspection, as though argu- 
ment were needed, begins as follows: "Medi- 
cal inspection is an extension of the activities 
of the school in which the educator and the 
physician join hands to insure for each child 
such conditions of health and vitality as will 
best enable him to take full advantage of the 
free education offered by the state. Its object 
is to better health conditions among school 
children, safeguard them from disease, and 
render them healthier, happier, and more 
vigorous. It is founded upon a recognition 
of the intimate relationship between the 
physical and mental conditions of the chil- 
dren, and the consequent dependence of edu- 
cation on health conditions." 

This is clear, and it is clearly common 
sense. Let us see if we can make an interpo- 
lation that will sound equally as sensible: 
Religious instruction in the public schools is 

93 



94 CKEED AND CUERICULUM 

an amplification of the curriculum by which 
teacher, minister, and parent can join hands 
to insure for each child such advantages of 
spiritual direction as will best enable him to 
take full advantage of the free education 
offered him by the state. Its object is to 
better moral, social, and religious conditions 
throughout the nation by rendering the chil- 
dren more intelligently susceptible to the 
spiritual appeal, to safeguard them from the 
dangers of moral contaminations and reli- 
gious prejudice, and to render them happier 
and more vigorous to combat evil tendencies 
and improper habits. It is founded upon a 
recognition of the intimate relationship be- 
tween the spiritual, mental, and physical ele- 
ments in child-history and the consequent 
dependence of education on moral evaluation. 
Medical inspection is having its day. 
Twenty years ago there was not a single or- 
ganized system of medical inspection in the 
country. To-day, their necessity is unchal- 
lenged, and they are in existence or in pros- 
pect of existence everywhere. This means 
that we are attaching to the scheme of com- 
pulsory education wider significance and call- 
ing it to broader fields of operation. "In the 



THE GREAT TEACHER 95 

future, compulsory education is to mean com- 
pulsory health.'' 

Good! One of the best means of bringing 
to pass such a condition is to quicken the 
conscience of the child on the subject of in- 
fringement of the laws of health. It is the 
province of religion to sensitize conscience. 
Teach the young the laws governing the well- 
being of the body and throw about them the 
safeguards to be secured through medical in- 
spection. At the same time let them under- 
stand that the guarding of physical health is 
a sacred obligation as well as a preventive of 
suffering — ^a religious duty arising from our 
relationship to the Creator and our commis- 
sion to keep the temple holy. So, as the scope 
of education broadens, we must realize more 
and more clearly that it must comprise those 
essentials of religious faith and practice that 
really form the basis of all our serious 
endeavors toward human betterment. The 
schools are standing for vigor of intellect, for 
skill of hand, for health of body, for social 
graces, and vocational equipment. Let them 
stand no less unequivocally for high-minded 
devotion to the Mighty One who upholdeth all 
things by the hand of his power. 



96 CEEED AND CUERICULUM 

The pendulum m no fit symbol of progress. 
Yet succeeding eras of history and even suc- 
ceeding decades in a century often illustrate 
the pendulum principle in social transitions. 
The swings forward, as though impelled by 
some hidden mechanism, have fortunately 
marked the longer arcs, and thus civilization 
in its more conspicuous aspects touches higher 
and yet higher points. We may anticipate, 
but should never cease to oppose that reaction 
which may throw society back into perils 
greater than those from which it has arisen. 

Our present distrust of religious influences 
in state educational enterprises may be ac- 
counted for on the pendulum theory. We 
have swung back and away from the extreme 
of clerical domination. The extreme of reli- 
gionless education would be one of still 
greater hazard to liberty. A' glance backward 
at the history of the centuries and countries 
called Christian, remembering the deductions 
already drawn from a similar survey of primi- 
tive peoples and pre-Christian nations, will 
be sufficient for the summoning of the main 
facts that require review in connection with 
our thesis. 

No history of education can ignore the 



THE GEEAT TEACHER 97 

character, the work, the ideals, the principles 
of the Founder of Christianity. No single 
force has; so affected education since time 
began. What, then, was the core of the teach- 
ings of Jesus, and how did his doctrines come 
to overshadow those of the great teachers of 
the ancient world? He healed the sick, so it 
is written, but he contributed nothing to the 
science of medicine. His concern was not 
primarily for the bodies of men. He was a 
laborer, but the labor problem is yet unsolved. 
He conducted no organized campaign for social 
reconstruction. His career has given to music, 
painting, architecture, and literature their 
finest conceptions and noblest incentives, but 
he penned no poem, he painted no picture, he 
designed no cathedral, and he composed no 
oratorio. He did not anticipate any of the 
great scientific discoveries that have so 
changed the world and the thoughts of men 
since his day. Many, many things he did not 
do which had they been done would have 
spared the race centuries of superstition and 
cycles of suffering. 

For not having done these things no man 
to-day thinks of criticizing the Son of Mary. 
The world is aware that he did a greater 



98 CEEED AND CUEKICULUM 

work. He saw the heart of the world's prob- 
lem. That problem, too, was an educational 
problem — it was the problem of society, how 
to promote its ultimate welfare. The ancient 
philosophers had failed at its solution. Jesus 
taught the world that the problem of the ulti- 
mate and universal well-being of society was 
in reality the problem of the development of 
the individual member of society. This was 
the essential thing that the ancient religions 
had missed. They excluded entire classes of 
the population from educational privileges, 
they sanctioned slavery, they subordinated 
women, they practiced infanticide, and they 
encouraged race bigotry and contempt for 
foreigners. Greeks and Eomans had made 
some valuable contributions to individualism, 
but it remained for Jesus of Nazareth to per- 
fect the doctrine, to give it the sanction of 
final authority. 

This, however, is but stating the problem, 
not solving it. If society is to be redeemed 
through the redemption of individuals, how, 
then, is the individual to be redeemed? 
Through medical inspection and physical 
training? Through equipment for a trade or 
a profession? Through cultural processes 



THE GREAT TEACHER 99 

that appeal only to the intellect? Through 
the accumulation of stores of knowledge? 
Through the perfection of natural endow- 
ments that bring fame and fortune to the pos- 
sessor? Had the Great Teacher gone no 
deeper into the problem than this, he would 
not have captured civilization as he did. No ; 
he laid the ax to the root of the tree. He re- 
lated man to the unseen; he grasped the full 
meaning of his spiritual endowment and 
planned for his uplift through an appeal to 
his moral and spiritual nature. The indi- 
vidual recognizing the will of God, and pur- 
posing to do that will, is already fashioned for 
his part in promoting the social welfare. In 
Christ's teachings of the unity of the race and 
the common fatherhood of God we have our 
authority for universal education. In Christ's 
emphasis on. spiritual union with God as the 
prime factor in the development of the indi- 
vidual we have our authority for claiming 
religion as an essential in education. This 
we hold to be a pedagogical principle so 
sound that to ignore it is to violate the 
noblest memories and the richest experiences 
of the Christian centuries and to repudiate 
it is to traduce the fame of Him who spake 



100 CREED AND CUERICULUM 

as never man spake. It is only in the appli- 
cation of the principle that disagreement is 
thinkable. 

What, then, is the record of the Christian 
era? How have the nations of Christendom 
lapplied the principle, with what results, and 
what are the excesses to be avoided, and what 
practice is to be most highly commended? 

The agreeable task of presenting such facts 
from the history of education in Christian 
lands as may serve to indicate the answer and 
to stir our pure minds by way of remem- 
brance, may be left for another chapter. In 
the meantime, evidences are not lacking that 
the more vital phases of the subject with 
which w^e are dealing are awakening the keen 
interest and challenging the attention of 
leading writers and educators and of thou- 
sands of intelligent citizens who lay no claim 
to belong to either of these honored classes. 



X 

BEFORE THE REFORMATION 

Has religion taken a subsidiary place with 
the advancement of Western civilization? 

Let us review quickly the educational his- 
tory of the early Christian centuries. This 
for better orientation. 

The success of the early church created the 
necessity for Christian schools. The followers 
of Christ as they increased in numbers could 
not be expected to depend on pagan institu- 
tions for the instruction of their children and 
for the guidance of converts. The first schools 
to be established are designated as catechu- 
menal, catechetical, and cathedral schools. 
Naturally, these organizations were religious 
in purpose, spirit, and accomplishment. Con- 
verts must be instructed in order to qualify 
for membership in the church and to acquaint 
themselves with the Scriptures, the psalmody, 
and the moral standards of the new faiths — 
hence catechumenal schools. Some of these 
must be trained, in turn, for the work of 
teaching, for the formulating of doctrine, and 

101 



102 CKEED AND CUERICULUM 

for polemical leadership. To do this, they 
must know something of pagan literature 
and philosophy, as well as of New Testament 
theology. Hence catechetical schools. Fur- 
ther, some of these must be set apart for the 
ministry, drilled in doctrine and ritual and 
in such general knowledge as would better 
equip them for public service. Hence cathe- 
dral schools. Of course these schools were 
influenced by the Graeco-Roman culture of 
the age, but they were distinctly religious and 
took up secular branches only as they were 
of service in advancing the cause of religion. 
The same viewpoint may be tolerated in some 
sectarian schools of to-day, but it is untenable 
and undesirable in the case of the public 
school in America. These early educational 
activities, however, are highly creditable to 
the cause of religion and are of moment in 
the history of education. In the first schools 
of Christendom ethical values were of supreme 
consideration. 

Next in order came the monastic schools. 
Asceticism created the monastery. The mon- 
asteries developed their own schools. For 
many centuries they represent the whole 
educational program in Christian Europe. 



BEFOEE THE REFORMATION 103 

They became the storehouses of learning from 
which later generations were to draw all 
their supplies. Monroe states that from the 
sixth to the sixteenth century the history of 
monasticism is the history of education. 
Monastic control was not an unmixed bless- 
ing. It is dififlcult even now to break away 
from some of the narrow conceptions and 
biased opinions of that era of religious con- 
trol, yet civilization marched along that path- 
way and it led at last to broader places. 

To-day, the monastery is an anachronism 
and the anchorite and cenobite are anomalies. 
Along the track of the centuries are found the 
remains of institutions once crowned with 
power, and it is not meet for us to forget their 
glory nor to minimize the value of their con- 
tributions to the cause of progress. 

The monastery stood first for moral and 
religious culture. It stood at various times 
and in many places for other things as well. 
As centers of intellectual activity and cul- 
tural pursuits, these institutions became not 
only fortresses of the faith but the barracks 
of educational creeds as well. Monastic 
schools were the only schools in existence. To 
them, therefore, we trace our knowledge of 



104 CREED AND CURRICULUM 

the arts and sciences of the ancient world. 
We can do much better to-day, but without 
the inheritance of results obtained by them 
we could do almost nothing. Primary studies 
for the children, secondary and higher educa- 
tion for their elders were organized on logical 
principles, and women were offered superior 
advantages in convents. Here we find the 
twofold classification of the Seven Liberal 
Arts into the Trivium, comprising grammar, 
rhetoric, and logic, and the Quadrivium^ — 
arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music. 
Here manuscripts were copied, libraries col- 
lected, ancient books preserved, and impor- 
tant new books produced. 

Such monasteries as Fulda in Germany, 
Canterbury in England, lona in Scotland, 
and Armagh in Ireland were famed through- 
out Christendom for their achievements in 
scholarship. Many were the evils and great 
were the limitations of monastic methods, 
but even these were recognized and reforms 
attempted. Charlemagne in Europe and 
Alfred in England associated their names 
with eras of improvement and made a begin- 
ning of popular education under state direc- 
tion. The Palatine School established at the 



BEFORE THE REFORMATION 105 

court of the empire was Charlemagne's model. 
Alfred laid the foundation for Oxford Uni- 
versity. It was the avowed purpose of 
Charlemagne to advance the interests of the 
church, and Alfred based his legal system on 
moral principles as espoused by the church. 

Thus passed ten centuries of our era, and 
nowhere is there any attempt to divorce reli- 
gion from education. Religion needed the 
services of education for her defense and 
advancement; education concerned itself with 
religion even more zealously than with 
science, literature, and art. 

The next type of educational discipline was 
that of chivalry. It furnishes rather a sharp 
contrast to monasticism. Physical develop- 
ment was sought for its own sake, and gal- 
lantry became the popular form of goodness. 
The young knight was trained in manly sports 
— hunting, fencing, swimming, riding. Reli- 
gion was by no means neglected. An impor- 
tant place was assigned to it in the general 
educational scheme. The knight was com- 
pelled to study religion even while he pursued 
his military training, and was finally inducted 
into his office by taking solemn vows to 
defend the church. Chivalry, concerned 



106 CREED AND CURRICULUM 

though it was with temporal things, did not 
stand for education minus definite religious 
instruction. 

Before we consider the period of the 
Renaissance it may be well to spare a few 
words to certain other aspects of intellectual 
development in the period preceding it, item- 
izing as follows: 

Scholasticism. 

Burgher Schools. 

Guild Schools. 

Schools of the Saracensi. 

Universities. 

Scholasticism has a theological genesis and 
purpose. Philosophy and logic were seized 
upon as weapons for the defense of the faith. 
Scholasticism made for the development of a 
rational philosophy for the purpose of sub- 
stantiating the doctrines of the church. It 
was an intellectual movement under a reli- 
gious impulse, was guided by able scholars 
such as Anselm, Peter Lombard, and Thomas 
Aquinas, and called forth weighty doctrines 
such as Conceptualism, Nominalism, and 
Realism. It prepared the way for the Renais- 
sance. 

Guild schools arose in response to the 



BEFORE THE REFORMATION 107 

needs of the multiplying artisan classes. 
Burgher schools had to do especially with 
economic questions. The former were sup- 
ported by trade guilds, but they were usually 
taught by the clergy. Civil authorities finally 
controlled these schools, and they come 
nearer to a resemblance of our modern public 
schools than any of the schools of the Middle 
Ages. They stood for practical education, 
but neither practical education nor state con- 
trol meant the severance of religion and learn- 
ing. The problems of a democracy among a 
heterogeneous people are modern and not 
medieval, and the educators of that day were 
not facing twentieth century difficulties. 

Among the Saracens the schools were asso- 
ciated with the mosques. Far afield as they 
went into the broader reaches of knowledge; 
expert as they were in mathematics, physics, 
chemistry, astronomy, and medicine, they 
were marked above all things else by their 
devotion to Allah and to the teachings of 
Mohammed, his prophet. 

All of these influences conspired to produce 
the university in the twelfth century, inde- 
pendent alike of church and state, yet afford- 
ing instruction in both civil law and theology. 



108 OEEED AND CUKEICULUM 

Church and monastic origins can be traced, 
and while the universities were thoroughly 
democratized they were under the sway of 
noted religious leaders and teachers and, in 
turn, were recognized as a powerful force in 
religious controversies. 

So we come to the period of the Renais- 
sance, that age of phenomenal changes 
crowning the old order and initiating the 
new: Feudalism had had its day and ideals 
of government changed. Columbus crossed 
the Atlantic and geography was changed. 
Gunpowder changed methods of warfare; 
printing changed bookmaking and methods of 
disseminating knowledge. The telescope 
changed astronomy, and the mariners' com- 
pass changed navigation. Education con- 
ceived new aims. Henceforth there was to 
be more freedom, more individuality, more 
personal culture. Medieval methods were 
found wanting. New attention was given to 
ancient literature, and to the study of the 
arts and sciences. 

Europe experienced an intellectual new 
birth, a renaissance in all that made for 
liberal education. It was certainly a testing 
time for religion as men were emboldened to 



BEFORE THE REFORMATION 109 

renounce what did not fit the new conditions. 
And how fared religion then? Was it 
divorced from education or did it maintain 
itself as an indispensable element in the 
broadened life of the new age? 

The question is raised but to indicate the 
plainness of the answer. Revived interest in 
the classics embraced fresh studies in the 
Hebrew and Greek Scriptures. Among the 
Italians asceticism gave place to sestheticism, 
with a moral and religious balance. Dante 
was a forerunner, and achieved immortality 
in his Divine Comedy. The leaders of the 
new age in northern Europe were pious 
scholars, associated with the religious order, 
Brothers of the Common Life, an order that 
served the cause of the common people, 
spread the principles of pure Christianity, 
and prepared the way for popular education. 
Practically all the illustrious educators of 
the Renaissance received their instruction 
and inspiration directly or indirectly from 
that little Dutch town Deventer, where Ger- 
hard Groot established his order and where 
Thomas a Kempis wrote his Imitation of 
Christ. 

What an interesting array of concrete facts 



110 CEEED AND CURRICULUM 

illustrative of this view could be given did 
space permit! The revolt from "other-world- 
liness'' must not be interpreted as the wear- 
ing away of religious conviction and interest. 
The moral motive works from core to peri- 
phery, touching it at different points accord- 
ing to the direction of the radii along which 
it moves. We have nowhere claimed in this 
discussion a uniformity of manifestation for 
religious sentiment. The religious conscious- 
ness may account for the self-abnegation of 
the anchorite in one generation and for the 
energy of the practical reformer in another. 
One root feeds many blossoms. 

In 1475 a tractate on The Liberal Educa- 
tion, written by one who was later to be ele- 
vated to the Papacy, declared that the true 
aim of such education was character, to 
achieve which man needs intellectual training 
as well as religious nurturing. The more 
liberal the education the more readily will it 
accord religion its proper consideration. The 
Renaissance broke with many superstitions 
and discredited many ceremonial practices, 
but so far from diverting the stream of his- 
tory from the channel of religious occupation 
it simply cleared the channel of many obstrue- 



BEFORE THE REFORMATION 111 

tions, accelerated the current, and finally 
merged itself with the Reformation. 

The idea of state-supported compulsory 
education as a duty to the child and safe- 
guard to the state may be traced to the Re- 
formation. The reformers were educationists 
as truly as they were religionists. So for the 
past four centuries the schools have felt the 
effects of the impact of their zeal and in 
Protestant lands have reared their giant 
superstructures upon their principles. Among 
Roman Catholics the Counter-Reformation 
was just as distinctly an educational propa- 
ganda flowering in the celebrated schools of 
the Jesuits, the Port Royalists, the Ora- 
torians, and the Christian Brothers. The 
logic of the Reformation compels Protestants 
and Catholics alike to recognize the inter- 
dependence of church and school and the im- 
perative claim of religion to consideration as 
one of the vital components of a liberal educa- 
tion. 

Primitive man, pagan man, medieval man, 
and modern man in the common essence of 
their human nature exhibit a necessity for 
religious admonition in order to fit them for 
life's urgencies and to effect that adjustment 



112 CEEED AND CUERICULUM 

which reveals to greatest advantage the com- 
posite individual to a composite society. Even 
democratic America — hand free, mind free, 
soul free — cannot afford to evade that uni- 
versal claim in her scheme of state-adminis- 
tered education. The voice of ages speaks in 
and through and for each generation as it 
appears, and it speaks for nothing so dis- 
tinctly as for the right of the child to know 
the God of the people. 



XI 

WHO LEADS THE WAY? 

A LIST of educational leaders since the Re- 
formation, no matter by whom compiled, 
would look something like this : 

1. Martin Luther. 

2. Philip Melancthon. 

3. Ulrich Zwingli. 

4. John Calvin. 

5. Michael Neander. 

6. Ignatius Loyola. 

7. Jean Baptiste de La Salle. 

8. Francois Rabelais. 

9. John Milton. 

10. Michael de Montaigne. 

11. Richard Mulcaster. 

12. Sir Francis Bacon. 

13. Wolfgang Ratich. 

14. 'John Amos Comenius. 

15. John Locke. 

16. Augustus Hermann Francke. 

17. Francois Fenelon. 

18. Charles Rollin. 

113 



114 CEEED AND CUERICULUM 

19. Jean Jacques Rousseau. 

20. Johnson Bernard Basedow. 

21. John Henry Pestalozzi. 

22. John Frederick Herbart. 

23. Friedrich W. A. Froebel. 

24. Herbert Spencer. 

25. Horace Mann. 

26. Henry Barnard. 

Or was this list selected from the pages of 
church history? It might have been so with 
but slight alteration. The names epitomize 
educational advancement for the last four 
centuries — ^they give conclusive testimony to 
the historiacl fact of educational progress 
under religious leadership. The first five were 
identified with the Protestant Reformation as 
preachers or propagandists. The sixth is the 
illustrious founder of the Jesuits. Had we 
included the Jansenists, who organized the 
Port Royal Schools as a protest to Jesuitism, 
we would have added such names as Saint 
Cyran, Pascal, and Nicole to that of Fenelon. 
La Salle was the founder of the Christian 
Brothers Schools^ — a priest and a religious 
enthusiast. Rabelais was a monk, Milton a 
Puritan, Comenius a pastor, Francke a Pietist 



WHO LEADS THE WAY? 115 

and pastor, who taught piety as the essential 
basis of education. Fenelon was a priest at 
twenty-four, and Rollin a learned theologian. 
Rousseau is in a class of his own, but his 
scheme of education provided for religion and 
morals. Basedow was trained for the Lu- 
theran ministry. Pestalozzi was minister and 
lawyer. 

It may be said without danger of contra- 
diction that no one of these eminent men 
advanced a theory of education that elimi- 
nated the religious element as a fundamental. 
Nor do our current theories require any such 
elimination. Our problem, as has already 
been shown, is a circumstantial or pruden- 
tial one, our polyglot population producing 
the perplexity of an apparent discrepancy 
between our educational ideals and our con- 
stitutional principle. We have yet to learn 
how to accommodate the ideal to the consti- 
tution with justice to all parties. Religious 
homogeneity would probably result in the 
harmonious religionizing of our schools — 
perhaps to an extreme. 

Here we are then between the Scylla of 
sectarianism on the one hand and the Cha- 
rybdis of nonreligion on the other — either 



116 CREED AND CURRICULUM 

rock may sink the ship. Experienced pilots 
are needed to guide our destinies safely into 
the open sea of progress. 

It can be done ! The writer has interviewed 
many well-known educators, editors, minis- 
ters, and public-spirited citizens on this ques- 
tion, and almost invariably the opinion has 
been given that definite religious instruction 
in the public schools is eminently desirable 
but practically impossible. It is probably 
true that this opinion prevails very largely 
among those best acquainted with the situa- 
tion and who therefore realize most clearly 
the difficulties to be overcome. Shall we then 
rest the case at this point? Is it the habit of 
the American people to abandon just causes 
because the solution of the problems they 
represent does not seem to be within reach? 
Has sufficient thought been given to this ques- 
tion, and has every possible effort been made 
to achieve the desired results? The crisis 
rushes on! 

It might at least be possible to conceive of 
a series of acceptable text-books and supple- 
mentary readers adapted to various grades 
dealing with the following subjects under 
appropriate titles: 



WHO LEADS THE WAY? 117 

1. Belief in an unseen God as a fact in 
human history. 

2. Eational grounds for the acceptance of 
a belief in God. 

3. Personal obligations and social benefits 
arising from this belief. 

This will outline a general course in Eeli- 
gion, Ethics, Morals, Behavior, Character, 
Conduct, or whatever other words may be 
chosen to fit the case. Such a course without 
offending any particular race or creed would 
deal with the fundamentals of individual 
happiness, racial progress, social recon- 
struction, and human uplift. The contents of 
the course would harmonize with and in many 
ways supplement what is presented in the 
departments of history, psychology, philoso- 
phy, and literature. It would also illustrate 
many facts connected with the study of the 
arts and sciences, and would round out the 
curriculum in a manner somewhat consonant 
with our pedagogical ideals. It might be pos- 
sible thus to train a generation away from 
the misconception of religion as a matter of 
the Sunday schools, to be neglected or sub- 
ordinated on six days of the week, and toward 
the proper conception of religion as a mighty 



118 CEEED AND CUERICULUM 

ever-operating factor in that superb process 
of which the schools are the exponents — the 
preparation of the individual for his supreme 
mission upon earth, namely, the construction 
of a noble character expressing itself in 
terms of a useful life. 

The field is a broad one. How much, for 
instance, may be included under the first gen- 
eral subject! — belief in God as a fac/t in his- 
tory. 

The world's best literature is full to over- 
flowing with the evidence. The customs of 
primitive peoples, the laws of modern nations, 
the testimony of illustrious men and women 
of all ages may be cited. The songs of all the 
nations, immortal paintings, crowning archi- 
tectural splendors of temples, cathedrals, 
shrines and altars, habits of prayer, historic 
pilgrimages, holy wars, records of inspiring 
deeds of devotion and sacrifice, even banish- 
ments and martyrdoms, and, above all, the 
accomplishments and lasting achievements of 
the world's great workers and thinkers trace- 
able directly or indirectly to religious incen- 
tives or demonstrating the strength of their 
faith in the unseen God— how practically in- 
exhaustible and immeasurable is the wealth 



WHO LEADS THE WAY? 119 

of material! And how absorbingly interest- 
ing the story could be made if skillfully 
handled! Industrial readers, nature stories, 
classical tales, and science primers have noth- 
ing to offer more instructive and inspiring. 

A presentation of the reasons why men 
have and why men do believe in the Supreme 
Being, with illustrative stories and impres- 
sive incidents, would carry the work still 
deeper into the individual consciousness, re- 
membering always the need of adaptation to 
grade. 

Having popularized the subject still fur- 
ther by showing the benefits unconditionally 
shared by all members of society through the 
benign influences of religious customs and in- 
stitutions, it would be a very natural conclu- 
sion to the course to insist on the recognition 
of reciprocal responsibilities and to outline 
the advantages of meeting these sacred obli- 
gations. Keligion as a central fact in history, 
as a means of larger liberty and greater 
happiness, is the common platform of all be- 
lievers, and there must be possible some 
method of teaching it in public schools with- 
out furnishing occasion for sectarian opposi- 
tion. Who, then, will lead the way? 



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